revival of the various strands of Confucian philosophy and political
culture that began in the middle of the 9th Century and reached new
levels of intellectual and social creativity in the 11th Century in
the Northern Song Dynasty. The first phase of the revival of the
Confucian tradition was completed by the great philosopher Zhu Xi
(1130-1200) and became the benchmark for all future Confucian
intellectual discourse and social theory. Especially after the Song,
the Neo-Confucian movement included speculative philosophers,
painters, poets, doctors, social ethicists, political theorists,
historians, local reformers and government civil servants. By the 14th
Century Zhu's version of Confucian thought, known as daoxue or the
teaching of the way or lixue or the teaching of principle, became the
standard curriculum for the imperial civil service examination system.
The Neo-Confucian dominance of the civil service continued until the
whole system was abolished in 1905.
The greatest challenge to Zhu Xi's initial synthesis of the various
themes and praxis of daoxue was presented by the great Ming
philosopher, poet, general, and civil servant, Wang Yangming
(1472-1529). Wang, while continuing many of the characteristic
practices of the movement, argued for a different philosophical
interpretation and cultivation of the xin or mind-heart, so much so
that Wang's distinctive philosophy is known as xinxue or the teaching
of the mind-heart in order to distinguish it from Zhu's teaching of
principle. In the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) there was a further
reaction against the speculative philosophy of both Zhu and Wang and
the movement known as hanxue of the learning of Han [Dynasty] arose to
combat what were taken to be the grave mistakes of both Zhu and Wang.
This last great Chinese Neo-Confucian movement is also know as the
school of evidential research because of its commitment to historical
and philological research in contradistinction to the Song and Ming
fascination with speculative metaphysics and personal moral
self-cultivation.
It is important to remember that along with being highly
philosophical, the Neo-Confucian masters where also teachers of
various forms of personal moral self-cultivation. From the
Neo-Confucian perspective, merely abstract knowledge was useless
unless conjoined with ethical self reflection and cultivation that
eventuated in proper moral behavior and social praxis. The
Neo-Confucians sought to promote a unified vision of humane
flourishing that would end with a person becoming a sage or worthy by
means of various forms of self-cultivation.
It is also vital to remember that Neo-Confucianism became an
international movement and spread to Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.
Neo-Confucianism flourished in all of these East Asian countries and
since the 16th Century some of most creative philosophical work was
achieved in Korea and Japan.
In the 20th Century, even amidst the tremendous political and military
upheavals throughout the East Asian region, there was yet another
revival movement based on Neo-Confucianism now known as New
Confucianism. While the New Confucian movement is clearly an heir of
its Neo-Confucian past, it is also deeply engaged in dialogue with
Western philosophy and is emerging as fascinating form of global
philosophy at the beginning of the 21st Century.
1. Defining the Confucian Way
Before we explore the revival of Confucian learning throughout East
Asia, we need to reflect on just what was being revived. Prior to the
emergence of the "Neo-Confucian" thinkers, the Confucian tradition
already had a long and distinguished tradition of commentary on the
teachings of the famous teachers from the legendary past into the
historical world of the Warring States and later.
The English labels "Confucianism" and "Neo-Confucianism" imply a close
connection to the life and thought of Master Kong or Kongzi
(Confucius), whose traditional dates are 551-479 BCE. If the term
"Neo-Confucianism" is considered problematic because of its modern
origin, its ancestor, "Confucianism," is likewise imprecise and
without a clear reference in traditional East Asian philosophical
usage. Critical scholars have pointed out that there is no single
Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Vietnamese traditional term that matches
"Confucianism." The closest term would be the hallowed Chinese
designation of ru or scholar. Some have suggested that Confucianism
should be renamed, they have suggested Ruism or the Ruist tradition;
they point out that this would match more closely what Master Kong
thought he was doing in teaching about the glories of Zhou culture.
The problem is that ru originally meant a scholar of ritual tradition
and not just followers of Master Kong. While it is true that, by the
Song dynasty, ru did indeed come to mean a "Confucian" as opposed to
Daoist or Buddhist scholars, this was not the case in the classical
period. Therefore, it is true that all "Confucians" were ru, although
not all ru scholars were followers of Master.
As we shall see, the use of the term "Neo-Confucian" is confusing and
needs some careful revision. By Song times, there are some perfectly
good Chinese terms that can be used to define the work of these later
Confucian masters. There are a number of terms in use after the Song
such as ru or classical scholar, daoxue or learning of the way, lixue
or the teaching of principle, xingxue or teaching of the mind-heart,
or hanxue or Han learning just to name a few. All of these schools fit
into the Western definition of Confucianism, but the use of a single
name for all of them obscures the critical differences that East Asian
scholars believe are stipulated by the diverse Chinese nomenclature.
While Confucians did almost always recognize each other across
sectarian divides, they were passionately concerned to differentiate
between good and bad versions of the Confucian Way.
Is it possible to provide a perfect and succinct definition of the
Confucian Way? Modern critical scholars are extremely wary of any
hegemonic set of essential criteria to define something as vast and
diverse as the Confucian Way in all its diverse East Asian forms. For
instance, is the Confucian tradition to be defined as an East Asian
philosophical discourse or is it better understood as one of China's
indigenous religious wisdom teachings? Or is the Confucian Way
something entirely different from what would be included or excluded
by the criteria of the Western concepts of philosophy or religion?
Notwithstanding such proper scholarly reticence, two contemporary
Confucian philosophers, Xu Fuguan and Mou Zongsan, have offered a
suggestion about at least one sustaining and comprehensive motif that
suffuses Confucian thought from the classical age to its modern
revivals. First, Xu and Mou argue that Confucianism has always
generated and sustained a profound social and ethical dimension to its
philosophical and social praxis. This kind of commitment has lead many
western scholars to define Confucianism as an axiological
philosophical sensibility, a worldview ranging from social ethics to
an inspired aesthetics. Second, accepting for a moment the axiological
nature of much Confucian discourse, Xu and Mou give such philosophic
reflections a particular name and call this informing motif of the
Confucian Way "concern consciousness." First, concern consciousness
speaks of the perennial Confucian "concern" for proper social
relations and hence the tradition's abiding interest in ethical
reflection and ethically edifying ritual praxis. Secondly, concern
consciousness is always set within a social context. For instance,
Confucian teachers have often taught that the folk etymology of ren or
humaneness makes the point of social nature of all proper Confucian
action: humaneness is at least two people treating each other as they
ought to in order to sustain human flourishing. Therefore Xu and Mou
argue that all Confucian thinkers will eventually return to an
explication of some form of "concern consciousness" when they are
giving a robust and detailed explanation of the rich teachings of the
Confucian Way. An unconcerned Confucian is an oxymoron. The content
and context of their concern for the world and the Dao will vary
dramatically, yet the sense of concern, of having a care as the
Quakers taught on the other side of Eurasia, remains a hallmark of
Confucian philosophical sensibilities.
2. Historical Background
The historical development of the Confucian Way or movement has been
variously analyzed in terms of distinct periods. The simplest version
is that there was a great classical tradition that arose in the Xia,
Shang and Zhou kingdoms that was perfected in the works and records of
the legendary sage kings and ministers and was then continued and
refined by their later followers such as Kongzi, Mengzi (Mencius) and
Xunzi. The death of Kongzi in 481 BCE marked the end of the Spring and
Autumn periods of the Eastern Zhou kingdom and the beginning of the
era called the Warring States period. On the one hand, although later
Chinese thinkers decried the ceaseless interstate warfare that
characterized the era, on the other hand the Warring States period is
remembered as the most creative philosophical epoch in Chinese
history. All of the great indigenous schools of Chinese philosophy
find their origin in this period from 480 to 221 BCE when the Qin
state finally unified the empire under the rule of the First Emperor
of the Qin. After the incredible cultural efflorescence of the Warring
States intellectuals, all future philosophical achievements were
deemed to be commentary on the depositions of the classical masters.
Later scholars have suggested that this binary division of Chinese
philosophical history is too simple and that there are three or more
clear divisions for the Confucian movement because it has demonstrated
a longevity and continuity of maturation for more than two thousand
five hundred years. For instance, some modern scholars suggest that,
based on creativity and transformation of the tradition, there was a
three-fold division of the classical period, the Neo-Confucian
movements of the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties and most recently
the era defined by the impact of the modern West on the East Asian
philosophical and religious Confucian worlds. The most complex
periodization differentiates the achievement of Confucian thinkers
over the centuries more subtly than either the binary or triadic
divisions allow. A strong case can be made for defining six discrete
eras in the historical development of the Confucian tradition in East
Asia:
1. The classical period beginning in the Xia, Shang and Zhou
kingdoms: includes the justly famous Warring States philosophers (c.
1700-221 BCE)
2. The rise of the great commentarial traditions on early
classical texts during the Han dynasty (206 BCE—200 CE)
3. The renewal of the Daoist tradition and the arrival of
Buddhism (220-907 CE)
4. The renaissance of the Song ["Neo-Confucianism"], the
flowering in the Yuan and Ming dynasties, and the spread of
Neo-Confucianism into Korea and Japan (960-1644 CE)
5. The "Han Studies" or "Evidential Research" movements of the
Qing dynasty and the continued growth of the movement in Korea and
Japan (1644-1911 CE)
6. The impact of the West, the rise of modernity, and the
decline and reformation of the Confucian Way as "New Confucianism"
(1912 CE to the present)
In order to give a capsule outline of the development of Confucianism
down to the rise of the great Neo-Confucian thinkers in the Song, what
follows is a very short set of outlines of the first three of these
six periods, which preceded the rise of Neo-Confucian movements. It is
important to remember that although Confucianism began as a Chinese
tradition it became an international movement throughout East Asia. A
full understanding of Neo-Confucianism requires that attention be paid
to its advancement in Korea, Japan and Vietnam along with the
continuing unfolding of the tradition in China.
a. The Classical Period
According to Master Kong, there was a long and distinguished tradition
of sage wisdom that stretched back even before the Xia and Shang
dynasties. Master Kong sought to collect, edit and transmit these
precious texts to his students in the hope that such an education
project would lead to the renewed flourishing of the culture of
humaneness based on the teachings of the sage kings and their
ministers. Master Kong was followed by a stellar set of Confucian
masters, the most important being Mengzi and Xunzi. These great
Confucian masters not only argued among themselves about the nature of
the Confucian way, they confronted the attacks of the other great
schools and thinkers of the Warring States period. The texts attached
to the names of these great scholars have served, along with the other
early canonical material, to define the contours of the Confucian Way
ever since the Warring States period.
While Master Kong would have rejected the notion that he founded or
created a new tradition, it is to his Analects that countless
generations of Confucians return to discover wisdom and insight into
the nature of Confucian culture. Further, great teachers such as
Master Meng and Master Xun continue to defend and refine the teachings
of Master Kong in robust debate with the other schools of the Warring
States period. Although there has always been skepticism about the
claim for such authorship, traditional Confucian scholars held that
Master Kong himself had an editorial role in the compilation of many
of the canonical texts that became ultimately the Thirteen Confucian
Classics.
b. The Han Dynasty
The Han dynasty contribution to the growth of the Confucian Way is
often overshadowed by the grand achievements of the classical period.
Yet the Han scholars edited almost all of the texts that survived and
began to add their own critical commentaries and interpretations to
the canonical texts. In many cases these Han commentaries are now
recognized as classics in their own right. One of the features of the
Confucian tradition is the use of various forms of commentaries as a
vital philosophical genre. It is a period that reveres historical
traditions and hence the commentary is viewed as a proper way to
transmit the traditional learning.
c. The Daoist Revival and the Arrival of Buddhism
After the fall of the Han dynasty, there was a marked revival of
various facets of the earlier Daoist traditions. The movement was
called xuanxue or arcane or abstruse (profound) learning. Xuanxue
thinkers were highly eclectic; sometimes they praised and used the
great Warring States Daoist texts such as the Daodejing or the
Zhuangzi to frame their complicated philosophical and religious
visions, and sometimes they reframed materials drawn from the
Confucian tradition as well. It is universally recognized that the
great xuanxue scholars brought a new level of philosophical
sophistication to their analysis of the classical and Han texts.
Moreover, this was also the epoch of the emergence of the great Daoist
religious traditions that mark the Chinese and East Asian landscape
from this era down to the present day. The Daoist religious founders
and reformers also claimed the early texts such as the Daodejing,
Zhuangzi and the Yijing [The Book of Changes] as their patrimony.
The xuanxue revival was ultimately eclipsed by the arrival of Buddhism
in China. The era stretching roughly from 200 to 850 marks the height
of the influence of Buddhism on Chinese culture. Along with the
translation of the immense Buddhist canon into Chinese, the scholar
monks of this era also created the unique Chinese Buddhist schools
that went on to dominate the religious life of East Asia. The
Buddhists also introduced novel social institutions such as monastic
communities for both men and women. Great Chinese schools of Buddhist
philosophy and practice were founded, such as the Tiantai, Huayan,
Pure Land and Chan traditions. In short, the impact on Chinese society
and intellectual life was immense and shaped the future of Confucian
philosophy.
It is very important to remember that Confucianism continued to play a
vital and even creative role in the history of Chinese philosophy
while Buddhism was ascendant. Confucianism never "disappeared" from
sight and in fact continued to dominate elite family life and
governmental service. Confucianism remained the preferred approach to
political and social thought and much personal and communal ethical
reflection was concurrent with the powerful contributions of Daoist
and Buddhist thinkers.
3. The Emergence of Neo-Confucianism
Both traditional and modern historians of China mark the year 755 CE
as the great divide within the Tang dynasty. This was the year of the
catastrophic An Lushan rebellion and although the Tang dynasty
formally lasted until its final demise in 906, it never recovered its
full glory. And glorious the Tang was; it is the dynasty always
remembered as one of the high points of Chinese imperial history in
terms of political, military, artistic, philosophical and religious
creativity. For instance, it was the flourishing and cosmopolitan
culture of the Tang world—with everything from metaphysics to
painting, calligraphy, poetry, food and clothes—that spread throughout
East Asia into the emerging societies of Korea and Japan. Moreover,
while the Tang is noted as the golden age of Buddhist philosophical
originality in terms of the formation of important Chinese schools
such as the Tiantai, Huayan, Pure Land and Chan [Zen in Japanese
pronunciation], a number of important Confucian thinkers began to
challenge the intellectual and philosophical supremacy of Buddhism.
Three great Confucian scholars stand out as the earliest
"Neo-Confucians": Han Yu (768-824), Li Ao (ca. 772-836) and Liu
Zongyuan (773-819). All three scholars launched a double-pronged
attack on Buddhism and a concomitant appeal for the restoration and
revival of the Confucian Way. Just after the deaths of this trio of
Confucian scholars, a late Tang emperor began a major persecution of
Buddhism. Although not a bloody event as persecutions of religions go,
many major schools failed to revive fully after 845 and this date,
along with the earlier rebellion of An Lushan, marks dramatic changes
in the philosophical landscape of China.
Along with his friends Han Yu and Li Ao, Liu Zongyuan was regarded as
one of the most famous scholars of his time. Liu is perhaps more of a
bridging figure between the early and later Tang intellectual worlds,
but he still expressed a number of highly consistent Neo-Confucian
themes and did so with a style that links him forward to the Song
masters. For instance, Liu, unlike many earlier Tang Confucians, was
interested in finding what he thought to be the principles expounded
in the classic texts rather than a convoluted, arcane if compendious
commentarial exegesis. He searched for the true meaning of the sages
in the texts and not merely to study the philological subtlety of
traditional commentarial lore. Further, Liu passionately believed that
the authentic Dao was to be found in antiquity, by which he meant the
true ideals of the Confucian teachings of the early sages. Along with
this commitment to finding the confirmed teachings of the sages in the
historical records, Liu was committed to political engagement based on
these sage teachings. Like all the later Neo-Confucians, Liu asserted
the need to apply Confucian ethical norms and insights to political
and social life.
Han Yu is considered to be the most important and innovative of the
Tang Confucian reformers. He was a true renaissance man; he was an
important political figure, brilliant essayist, Confucian philosopher
and anti-Buddhist polemicist. What gives his work such power is that
he carried out his various roles with a unified vision in mind: the
defense and restoration of the Confucian Way.
In order to restore the Confucian Way, Han Yu developed a program of
reform and renewal manifested in a literary movement called guwen or
the ancient prose movement. But Han was doing much more than simply
calling for a return to a more elegant prose style. He was urging this
reform in order to clarify the presentation of the ideas of the
Confucian tradition that was needlessly obscured by the arcane writing
styles of the current age. He wanted to write clearly in order to
express the plain truth of the Confucian Way. Moreover, Han stressed a
profound self-cultivation of the Dao. In order to do so, Han
accentuated the image of the sage as the proper role model for humane
self-cultivation. And last, but certainly not least, Han and his
colleagues proposed a Confucian canon-within-the-canon of a select set
of texts that especially facilitate such a quest, namely such works as
The Doctrine of the Mean, The Great Learning, the Analects and the
Mengzi .
Along with his reform of the style and canon of the teaching of the
Confucian Way, Han also explained his philosophical program in terms
of the vocabulary and sensibility of the later Song Neo-Confucian
revival. As Han put it, the sage seeks "to develop one's nature to
perfection through the penetration of principle" or qiongli jinxing.
Han himself wrote in an exegesis of a passage in the Analects in the
examinations of 794:
Answer: The sage embraces integrity (cheng) and enlightenment
(ming) as his true nature (zhengxing); he takes as his base the
perfect virtue; this is equilibrium and harmony (zhongyong). He
generates (fa) these inside and gives them form outside; they do not
proceed from thought, yet all is in order. This mind [-heart] set on
evil has no way to develop in him, and preferable behavior cannot be
applied to him; so only the Sage commits no errors (Hartman 1986:
201).
Han Yu's friend Li Ao shared similar views and wrote a highly
influential essay on human nature that sounded more of the philosophic
themes that would dominate the Song Neo-Confucian revival. While Li's
vision of the self might be a bit too quiescent for the tastes of the
more activist Song literati, it still captured the tone of the
philosophical revival:
Therefore it is sincerity that the sage takes as his nature,
absolutely still and without movement, vast and great, clear and
bright, shining on Heaven and Earth. When stimulated he can then
penetrate all things in the world. In act or in rest, in speech or
silence, he always remains in the ultimate. It is returning to his
true nature that the worthy man follows without ceasing. If he follows
it without ceasing he is enabled to get back to the source (Barrett
1992: 102).
In many ways it was this attempt to "get back to the source" in the
classical Confucian texts that characterizes the philosophical
endeavors of the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing masters. There is a
continuous debate about what this nature is, whether it is in constant
movement or is still; what "the ultimate" ultimately is or what the
nature of the source of all of this is.
4. Traits, Themes and Motifs
One of the most common assumptions about the philosophical
achievements of the Neo-Confucian literati is that it was stimulated
into life by interaction with Daoist and Buddhist thinkers. While
there is a genuine element of truth in this stimulus theory of the
origins of Neo-Confucianism, it is also true that, once prompted by
the best of Daoist and Buddhist thought, the Neo-Confucians
constructed their philosophies out of materials indigenous to the
historical development of the Confucian Way. For instance, I have
chosen to call this historical background the Confucian Way (rudao)
because this was the concept used by the great Song masters. They
argued that they were not inventing something new but were rather
reviving "this culture of ours" as the true Dao of the sage kings of
antiquity as transmitted by Master Kong and Master Meng. Yet the
materials, the traits, concepts, themes and motifs the Song masters
used in reconstructing the Confucian Way were drawn almost exclusively
from the classical repertoire. These concepts, traits, themes and
terms include:
1. Ren as the paramount virtue and marker for all the other
virtues such as justice/yi, ritual action/li, wisdom or discernment/zi
and faithfulness/xin; these five constant virtues provide the
axiological sensibility to the whole Neo-Confucian enterprise; these
are linked to filial piety/xiao as an expression of primordial
familial relationships.
2. Li as ritual action; the social glue that holds society
together and in fact helps to constitute the humane person.
3. Tian or heaven and tianming or the Mandate of Heaven; di or
earth; whether we should use a capital "H" for tian is an important
question for the Neo-Confucian philosophy of religion; Tian, di and
ren or heaven, earth and human beings form an important cosmological
triad for the Neo-Confucians.
4. Li as principle, pattern or order to the whole of the
cosmos; a key Song philosophic term as a little used early Confucian
concept.
5. Xin or the mind-heart; the living center of the human
person; needs to be cultivated by proper ritual in order to realize
true virtue.
6. Xing or human tendencies, dispositions or nature; this is
the principle/li given to each emerging person by tian as the mandate
for what the person ought to be.
7. Qi or vital force or material force that functions as the
dynamic force or matrix out of which all object or events emerge and
into which they all return when their career is completed.
8. Qing as emotion, desire and passion; intimately related to
qi/vital force as the dynamic side of the cosmos.
9. Dao wenxue & zun dexing or serious study and reflection or
honoring the moral tendencies or dispositions as designations of two
different ways of cultivating the xin/mind-heart and as contrasting
modes of moral epistemology.
10. gewu or the investigation of things was a key [and highly
contested] epistemological methodology for the examination of the
concrete objects and events of the world.
11. Cheng or sincerity, genuineness and the self-actualization
of the moral virtues such that one achieves a morally harmonious life
via various forms of xiushen or self-cultivation by means of such
praxis as jing mindfulness or attentiveness; this praxis is the "how"
of the moral self-cultivation of the five constant virtues.
12. Nei/wai as the inner and outer dimensions of any process;
often also used for the "king without, sage within"; often also
discussed in terms of the opposition of si/selfishness and
pian/partiality or one-sidedness and gong of public spirit.
13. tiyong or substance and function and ganying or stimulus and
response as typical analytic dyads used to describe the reactive
movement, generations, productions and emergence of the objects and
events of the cosmos.
14. liyi fenshu or the teaching that principle is one or unified
while its manifestations are many or diverse; often seen as the
characteristic holistic organic sensibility and yet realistic
pluralism of Neo-Confucian thought.
15. daotong or the Transmission of the Way or Succession, or
Genealogy of the Way; Zhu Xi's masterful account of the revival of the
Confucian Way by a set of Northern Song philosophical masters.
16. siwen or "this culture of ours" as the expression of refined
self-cultivation and the manifestation of principle from the family to
the cosmos.
17. He or harmony and zhong or centrality as designations of the
goals or outcomes of the successful cultivation of all the virtues
necessary for humane flourishing.
18. zhishan or the highest good as the realization of harmony
and centrality; the ideal would be to become a sheng or sage
(theoretically possible but in practice extremely difficult) or a
junzi, a worthy or noble person.
19. Taiji or the Supreme Polarity or Supreme Ultimate as the
highest formal trait of the principle of the whole cosmos and for each
particular thing; often discussed in terms of benti or the
origin-substance or substance and source of all objects and events.
20. Dao or the perfect good of all that is, will or can be; the
totality of the cosmos as the shengsheng buxi or generation without
cessation; also usually implies a moral "more" to the myriad things of
the cosmos.
5. Song and Ming Paradigms: daoxue or "Teaching of the Way"
Zhu Xi's (1130-1200) version of and description of the revival of
Confucian thought formed the paradigm for the main philosophical
developments that give rise to the Western notion of Neo-Confucianism
and the variety of East Asian designations of the various Song
movements such as daoxue. Other thinkers would adopt, modify,
challenge, transform and sometimes abandon Zhu's philosophy and his
narrative of the development of the tradition; nonetheless, it is
Zhu's version of the Confucian Way that became the paradigm for all
future Neo-Confucian discourse for either positive affirmation or
negative evaluation. It is Master Zhu who also provides the
philosophical interpretation of the rise of Neo-Confucianism that
defines the historical accounts of the tradition from the Southern
Song on. In short, Zhu's theory of the daotong or the transmission or
succession (genealogy) of the Way not only provides the content for
the tradition but also the historical context for its further analysis
by partisans and critics in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.
Zhu Xi inherited the rich complexity of the revival of Confucian
thought from a variety of Northern Song masters. In organizing this
heritage into an enduring synthesis, Zhu was highly selective in his
choices about who he placed in the daotong or the succession of the
way or the true teachings drawn from the legendary sages; historical
paladins such as the Kings Wen, Wu and the Duke of Zhou, and then
Master Kong and Master Meng as the consummate philosophers of the
classical age. It is always important to remember that the Song
cultural achievement is much broader then Zhu's favored short list of
Northern Song masters. Anyone interested in the history of Song
Confucian thought will need to pay careful attention to thinkers as
diverse as the Northern Song scholars and activists such as Fan
Zhongyan (989-1052), Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072), Wang Anshi (1021-1086),
Sima Guang (1019-1086), Su Shi (10-37-1101) and Southern Song
colleagues and critics of Zhu such as Lu Xiangshan (1139-1193) and
Chen Liang (1143-1194)—just to give a short list of major Song
philosophers, scholars, politicians, historians, social critics and
poets.
Zhu Xi's own list included Zhou Tunyi (1017-1073), Zhang Zai
(1020-1077), Cheng Hao (1032-1085) and Cheng Yi (1033-1107) [and
though not canonized by Zhu, any such list would be incomplete without
recognition of Shao Yong (1011-1077)]. Each one of these thinkers,
according to Zhu, contributed important material for the recovery of
"this culture of ours" and to the formation of daoxue as the
appropriate Confucian teaching of the Song cultural renaissance. Zhu's
unique contribution to the process was to give philosophical order to
the disparate contributions of the Northern Song masters.
a. Zhu Xi's Synthesis
What Zhu Xi did was to give a distinctive ordering to the kinds of
terms listed above; he gave them a pattern that became the
philosophical foundation of daoxue. For those who disagreed, such as
Lu Xiangshan and the later Ming thinker Wang Yangming (1472-1529), Zhu
provided the template of Song thought that must be modified,
transformed or even rejected, but never ignored.
The most famous innovation Zhu provided, based on the original
insights of the two Cheng brothers and Zhang Zai was to frame daoxue
philosophy via the complicated cosmological interaction of
principle/li and vital force/qi. To understand Zhu's argument, we must
consider how the question of the relationship of principle and vital
force presented itself to Zhu Xi as a philosophical problem in need of
a solution. Zhu understood his analysis of principle and vital force
to be the answer to the question of interpreting the relationship of
the human mind-heart, human natural tendencies and the emotions.
Trying to resolve how all of this fit together, Zhu borrowed a
critical teaching of Zhang Zai to the effect that the mind-heart
unifies the human tendencies and the emotions. Zhu then went on to
claim that analytically understood this meant that the principle qua
human tendencies or dispositions gave a particular order or pattern to
the emerging person and that the dyad of principle and vital force
coordinated and unified the actions of the mind-heart. In other words,
Zhu discerned a tripartite patterning or principle of the emergence of
the person, and by extension, all the other objects or events of the
world in terms of form or principle, dynamics or vital force and their
unification via the mind-heart: the mature schematic is form, dynamics
and unification. Moreover, once this unification of the principle and
vital force was achieved and perfected, the outcome, at least for the
human person, was a state of harmony or balance.
Zhu's ingenious synthesis, to which he gave the name daoxue or
teaching of the way, accomplished two different ends. First, its
breadth of vision provided Confucians with a response to the great
philosophical achievements of the Chinese Buddhist schools such as the
Tiantai or Huayan. Second, and more important, it outlined a Confucian
cosmological axiology based upon the classical Confucian texts of the
pre-Han era as well as an explanation for and analysis of the coming
to be of the actual objects or events of the world. Zhu achieved this
feat by showing how all the various concepts of the inherited
Confucian philosophical vocabulary could be construed in three
different modalities based on the pattern of form, dynamics and
unification.
For instance, the analysis of the human person was very important for
Zhu Xi. Each person was an allotment of vital force generated by union
of the parents. Along with this allotment of qi or vital force, each
person inherited a set of natural tendencies or what has often been
called human nature. The subtlest portion of the vital force becomes
the mind-heart for each person. The mind-heart has both cognitive and
affective abilities; when properly cultivated, the mind-heart, for
instance, can recognize the various principles inherent in its own
nature and the nature of other objects and events. And when subject to
proper education and self-cultivation, the mind-heart can even learn
to correctly discern the various is/ought contrasts found in the world
in order to sustain human flourishing via ethical action. In short,
the mind-heart, as the experiential unity of concern consciousness
becomes the human agent for creative and humane reason. The most
pressing human is/ought contrast is that between the nature of
principle as the ethical tendencies of human nature and the dynamic
flux of human emotions that are governed, without proper
self-cultivation, by selfishness and one-sidedness. There is nothing
evil in an Augustinian sense of the human emotions save for the fact
that they are much too prone to excess without the guidance of
principle.
When asked to give an analytic account of this portrait of the human
person, Zhu Xi then noted that this was to be explained by recourse to
the concepts of the particular principle for each object or event,
vital force of each such object or event and the normative or
"heavenly mandate" of each object or event, which Zhu Xi called the
Supreme Ultimate or Polarity. The whole system was predicated on the
daoxue conviction of the ultimate moral tendency of the Dao to
regulate the creative structure of the ceaseless production of the
objects and events of the world. The world was thus to be seen as
endlessly creative and relentlessly realistic in the sense that this
cosmic creativity of the Dao eventuated in the concrete objects and
events of the world.
The experiential world of the human mind-heart and the analytic schema
of the unification of principle and vital force could also be
described by the use of classical Confucian selective or mediating
concepts such as cheng or self-actualization of jen or ultimate
humanization as the paramount human ethical norm. Cheng and jen
provide the modes of self-actualization and the methods of
self-cultivation of the various emotional dispositions that give moral
direction to the person when the person is grasped by a proper
recognition of the various is/ought contrasts that inevitably arise in
the conduct of human life. Hence the concern-consciousness of the
person is the basis of individual creativity and manifests the
particular principle of the mandate of heaven in a specific time and
place for each person. Cosmic creativity or the ceaseless production
of the objects and events of the cosmos replicates itself in the life
of the person, and when properly actualized or integrated, can cause
the person to find the harmony and balance of a worthy or even a sage.
Thus even Zhu Xi's explanation of the role of formal analysis, the
arising of the existential manifestation of human nature and human
emotion via the various mediating or selective concepts appropriate to
the various levels of abstract or concrete determination itself takes
on a carefully crafted triadic structure that manifests the proper
discernment of the various dyadic conceptual pairs so evident in
classical Confucian discourse. Both the tensions of the contrasting
pairs such as nature and emotion are preserved and yet re-inscribed in
the various allotments of the qi of each of the objects or events of
the cosmos with a vision of their harmonious and balanced creative
interaction. Zhu's world is truly one of liyi fenshu or principle is
one [unitary], whereas the manifestations are many.
Zhu Xi was equally famous for this theory of the praxis of the
self-cultivation of the ultimately moral axiology of his multi-level
system of philosophical analysis. His preferred method was that of
gewu or the investigation of things. Zhu Xi believed that all the
objects and events of the world had their own distinctive principle
and that it was important for the student to study and comprehend as
many of these principles as possible. It was a method of intellectual
cultivation of the mind-heart that included both introspection and
respect for external empirical research. In many respects, gewu was an
attempt toward finding an objective and inter-subjective method to
overcome pian or the perennial human disinclination to be one-sided,
partial or blinkered in any form of thought, action and passion. In
Zhu's daoxue a great deal of emphasis was placed on reading and
discerning the true meaning the Confucian classics, but there was also
room in the praxis for a form of meditation known as quiet-sitting as
well as empirical research into the concrete facts of the external
world. The debates about the proper way to pursue self-cultivation and
the examination of things proved to be one of the most highly debated
sets of interrelated philosophical concerns throughout the
Neo-Confucian world.
b. Song and Ming Rebuttals of daoxue
In terms of philosophical debate about the worthiness of daoxue, there
was a great deal of disagreement about a variety of issues in the
Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. The Qing scholars were the most
radical in their critique and merit a separate section; however, there
were immediate Song dynasty rejoinders to Zhu Xi who argued against
part of the synthesis on philosophical grounds. The first major
rebuttal came from Zhu's friend and critic Chen Liang (1143-1194), one
of the great utilitarian philosophers of the Confucian tradition. What
worried Chen about Zhu's daoxue was that it was too idealistic and
hence not suited to the actual geopolitical demands of the Southern
Song reality. While it is clear that Zhu was passionately involved in
the politics of his day, Chen contended that the world was a more
empirically complex place than Zhu's system implied. "I simply don't
agree with [your] joining together principles and [complex] affairs
[as neatly and artificially] as if they were barrel hoops" (Tillman
1994: 52).
The nub of the debate revolved around the proper understanding of the
notion of "public" or gong, gongli, public benefit. Here Chen broke
with Zhu and suggested that good laws were needed just as good
Neo-Confucian philosophers trained in a metaphysical praxis such as
daoxue. "The human mind-heart (xin) is mostly self-regarding, but laws
and regulations (fa) can be used to make it public-minded (gong)….Law
and regulations comprise the collective or commonweal principle
(gongli)" (Tillman 1994:16).
Such arguments for pragmatic political theory and even an appeal to
the beneficial outcomes of carefully constructed legal regimes were
never well received in the Neo-Confucian period, even if they did
point to some genuinely diverse views within the Song Confucian
revivals.
The most influential critique of Zhu Xi's daoxue also came from
another good friend, Lu Xiangshan (1139-1193). The crux of the
philosophical disagreement resides in Lu's different interpretation of
the role of the mind-heart in terms of the common Neo-Confucian task
of finding the right method for evaluating the moral epistemology of
interpreting the world correctly. In a dialogue with a student, Lu
pinpointed his argument with Zhu:
Bomin asked: How is one to investigate things (gewu)?
The Teacher (Lu Xiangshan) said: Investigate the principle of things.
Bomin said: The ten thousand things under Heaven are extremely
multitudinous; how, then, can we investigate all of them exhaustively?
The teacher replied: The ten thousand things are already complete
in us. It is only necessary to apprehend their principle (Huang 1977:
31).
There are two important things to notice about Lu's critical response
to the question of the examination of things. First, in many ways Lu
does not disagree with the basic cosmological outline provided by Zhu
Xi. Second, the philosophic sensibility, however, becomes even more
focused on the internal self-cultivation of the person. Many scholars
have remarked upon the fact that we find a turn inward in so much Song
and Ming philosophy, and none more so than in Lu's intense desire to
find principle within the person. Of course, this is not to be
understood as a purely subjective idealism. Rather, Lu would argue
that only by finding principle in the mind-heart could the person then
effectively comprehend the rest of the world. The point is not a
solipsistic retreat into subjective and relativistic reveries of
isolated individuality but rather a heightened ability to interpret
and engage the world as it really is. The critical question is to find
the proper place to start the investigation of things. If we start
with the things of the world, we fall prey to the problems of
self-delusion and partiality that infect the uncultivated person. But
if we can find the correct place and method to investigate things and
comprehend their principles, then we will understand the actual,
concrete unity of principle.
c. Wang Yangming
Centuries later in the mid-Ming dynasty, Wang Yangming (1472-1529)
sharpened what he took to be Lu's critique of Zhu Xi. Wang's
philosophy was inextricably intertwined with of his eventful life.
Wang also had the richest life of any of the major Neo-Confucian
philosophers: he was a philosopher of major import, a poet, a
statesman and an accomplished general. Wang began as a young student
by attempting to follow Zhu's advice about how to gewu or investigate
things. With a group of naïve young friends they went into a garden to
sit in front of some bamboos in order to discern the true principle of
bamboo. The band of young scholars obviously thought that this would
be an easy task. One by one they fell away, unable to make any
progress in their quest to understand bamboo principle. Wang was the
last to give up and only did so after having exhausted himself in the
futile effort. Wang recounts that he simply believed that he lacked
the moral and intellectual insight to carry out the task at hand; at
this time he did not question Zhu's master narrative about how to
engage the world as a Confucian philosopher.
Later during a painful political exile in the far south of China, Wang
Yangming had a flash of insight into the problem of finding the true
location of principle. As Tu Weiming writes, "For the first time
Yangming came to the realization that "My own nature is, of course,
sufficient for me to attain sagehood. And I have been mistaken in
searching for the li [principle] in external things and affairs
[shiwu]" (Tu 1976: 120). Wang clearly understood this enlightenment
experience as a confirmation that Lu Xiangshan was correct when Lu had
declared that principle was to be found complete within the mind-heart
of the person. In much greater detail than Lu, Wang then set out to
develop the philosophical implications of the primordial insight into
the proper way to carry out Confucian moral epistemology and
self-cultivation. And after having straightened out the epistemology,
Wang then went on to explain how the Confucian worthy should act in
the world. This strong emphasis on the cultivation of the mind-heart
led to the categorization of Wang's teaching as a xinxue or teaching
of the mind-heart as opposed to Zhu's lixue or teaching of principle,
and, in fact, this is the way later scholars often labeled the
teachings of Zhu and Wang.
The way Wang taught about the task of realizing what he called the
innate goodness of human nature was his famous doctrine of the unity
of knowledge and action. As Wang said, "Knowledge is the direction for
action and action is the effort for knowledge" and "Knowledge is the
beginning of action and action is the completion of knowledge" (Ching
1976: 68). The problem that Wang was addressing was the deep concern
that Zhu's method for examining things in order to cultivate the
essential goodness of the mind-heart was too fragmented and that such
epistemological fragmentation would eventuate in moral failure and
cognitive incompetence. Real praxis and theory could not be separated,
and even if Wang acknowledged that Zhu was a sincere seeker after the
Dao, Wang believed that Zhu's methods were hopelessly flawed and
actually dangerous to the cultivation of the Confucian worthy.
d. The Role of Emotion
There was yet another philosophical realignment within Ming thought
that is harder to identify with the specific teachings of any one
master, namely the debate over the role of qing or emotion within the
Neo-Confucian world of discourse [representative scholars would be Li
Zhi (1527-1602) and Ho Xingyin (1517-1579)]. The nature of the
emotions or human feelings was always a topic of reflection within the
broad sweep of the historical development of Confucianism because of
the persistent Confucian fascination with moral anthropology and
ethics. Zhu Xi had a very important place for the emotions in his
teachings of the way, though many later thinkers felt that Zhu was too
negative about the function of the emotions. While it was perfectly
clear that Zhu never taught that the emotions per se were evil or
entirely negative, he did teach that the emotions needed to be
properly and carefully cultivated in terms of the conformity of the
emotional life to the life of principle. Zhu thematized this as the
contrast between the daoxin or the Mind of Dao and the renxin or the
Mind of Humanity (the mind of the psychophysical person). Moreover, it
was also perfectly clear that Zhu taught that the truly ethical person
needed to realize the Mind of Dao in order to actualize the human
tendencies as mandated by heaven for each person. If not hostile to
the emotions, Zhu was wary of them as the prime location for human
self-centered and partial behavior.
By the late Ming dynasty many of the followers of Wang Yangming
harshly questioned what they took to be the negative Song teachings
about the emotional life. In fact, many of these thinkers made the
bold claim that the emotions were just as important and valuable
philosophical resources for authentic Confucian teachings as
reflections on the themes of principle or vital force. In fact, they
contended that it was a proper and positive interpretation of human
emotions and even passions that distinguishes Confucianism from Daoism
and Buddhism. Whether or not these thinkers were correct in their
interpretations of Daoist and Buddhist thought need not detain us
here. What is more important is that these thinkers developed a more
positive interpretation of qing than had been the case in earlier Song
and Ming thought. It might be argued that such a concern for the
emotions was just another marker of the Neo-Confucian turn toward the
subject, a flight to contemplation of an inner subjective world as
opposed to the much more activist style of the Han and Tang scholarly
traditions. However, this speculation about emotion, even romantic
love, had the unintended effect of allowing educated Chinese women to
enter into the debate. Debarred, as they noted, from active lives
outside the literati family compounds, the women observed that
although living circumscribed lives compared to their fathers,
brothers, husbands and sons, they did know something about the
emotions—and that they had something positive to add to the debate.
Dorothy Ko's important study of the role of educated women tells the
wonderful and poignant story of three young women, Chan Tong (ca.
1650-1665), Tan Ze (ca. 1655-1675) and Qian Yi (fl. 1694). All three
were eventually the wives of Wu Ren, with Chan and Tan dying very
early in life and leaving what would be called the Three Wives
Commentary on the famous Ming drama The Peony Pavilion to be completed
and published in 1694 by the third wife, Madame Qian. The three women
demonstrated just as great scholarly exegetical and hermeneutic skills
as their husband, and he always acknowledged their authorship and
their collective and individual genius against those who thought women
unable to achieve this level of cultural, artistic and philosophical
sophistication. In short, the three women defended and explicated the
theory about human emotions, also held by the radical Taizhou school
followers of Wang Yangming, that even the entangled emotions of
romantic love could become "a noble sentiment that gives meaning of
human life" (Ko 1994:84). Although not widely accepted in late Ming
and Qing society, these Confucian women defended the notion of
companionate marriage based, in part, on a Confucian analysis of the
emotional needs of women and men.
e. Evidential Research
After the conquest of all of China by the Manchu in 1644, there was a
tremendous cultural backlash against the radical thinkers of the late
Ming dynasty. Rather than seeking validation of the emotions and human
passions, many Qing scholars took a completely different approach to
rediscover the true teachings of the classical Confucian sages. The
point of departure for all of these thinkers was to reject the
philosophical foundations of both Song scholars such as Zhu Xi and
Ming teachers such as Wang Yangming. The charge the radical Qing
scholars made against both Zhu and Wang Yangming was that both lixue
and xinxue were completely infused with so much extraneous Daoist and
Buddhist accretions that the true Confucian vision was subverted into
something strange to the teachings of the classical Confucian masters.
Therefore, the task of the Qing scholars was to strip Neo-Confucianism
of its Daoist and Buddhist subversive inclusions.
The method that the Qing scholars chose has been called hanxue or Han
Teaching or kaozhengxue, Evidential Research Learning. The chief
tactic was to argue that the best way to return to true Confucian
teachings in the face of Song Neo-Confucian distortions was to return
to the work of the earliest stratum of texts, namely the work of the
famous Han exegetes. The theory was that these Han scholars were
closer to the classical texts and were also without the taint of undue
Daoist or Buddhist influence. The other way to describe the movement
is to note that these scholars promoted a various rigorous
historical-critical and philological approach to the philosophical
texts based on what they called an evidential research program. The
grand axiom or rubric of the kaozhengxue scholars was to find the
truth in the facts. They abjured what they believed to be the overly
metaphysical flights of fancy of the Song and Ming thinkers and went
back to the careful study of philology and textual and social history
in order to return to a true Confucian scholarly culture. The better
philosophers of this group, with Ku Yanwu (1613-1682) and Dai Zhen
(1724-1777) as the bookends of the tradition, recognized that such an
appeal to research methodology as opposed to Song metaphysics was also
a philosophical appeal in its own right. Yet all these Evidential
Research scholars were united in trying to find the earliest core of
true Confucian texts by a meticulous examination of the whole history
of Confucian thought. Along with major contributions to Confucian
classical studies, these Evidential Research philosophers also made
major additions to the promotion of local historical studies and even
advanced practical studies in agriculture and water management. They
really did try to find the truth in the facts. Yet the world of the
Qing Evidential Research scholars was as ruthlessly destroyed as the
metaphysical speculations of Song-style philosophers with the arrival
of the all-powerful Western imperial powers in the middle of the 19th
century.
6. Korean and Japanese Contributions
It is extremely important to remember that Neo-Confucianism was an
international and cross-cultural tradition in East Asia, with
different manifestations in China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam. For
instance, a strong case can be made for the strong philosophical
creativity of Korean Neo-Confucians in the 15th and 16th centuries and
in Japan after the inception of Tokugawa rule in 1600. Two examples
will have to suffice to demonstrate that in some eras the most
stimulating and innovative Confucian philosophical work was being done
in Korea and Japan. As mentioned above, little study has been devoted
to the Vietnamese reception and appropriation of Neo-Confucian
philosophy at that time, and thus it is still impossible to speak with
as much confidence about it as we can about the creativity of the
Korean and Japanese Neo-Confucian philosophers.
a. Yi T'oegye and Yi Yulgok
The Korean Neo-Confucians who practiced the official ideology of the
Choson kingdom after its founding in 1392 were devoted followers of
Zhu Xi's daoxue. But just because they were profound students of
Master Zhu's Southern Song Neo-Confucian synthesis does not mean that
they did not realize that there were still a number of outstanding
philosophical issues that needed to be debated in terms of how Zhu Xi
depicted the daoxue project as a coherent philosophical vision. The
most famous case of this Korean perspicacity is found in the justly
famous Four-Seven Debate, a profound dialogue among scholars about the
role of emotions within Zhu's Neo-Confucian cosmology; the two most
famous philosophers were Yi T'oegye (1501-1570) and Yi Yulgok
(1536-1583).
The debate was framed as a technical discussion of two different lists
of emotions (one list of four and another of seven different emotions,
and hence the name for the Four-Seven Debate) inherited from the
classical Confucian texts. But the most interesting underlying
philosophical issues that emerged had to do with the analysis of the
nature of and relationship between principle and vital force. In
short, the Korean scholars realized that as elegant as it might be,
there were problems with Zhu's account of the nature of principle. The
problem was put this way in a famous metaphor: how could a dead rider
(principle as a purely formal pattern) guide the living horse of vital
force? In other words, the Korean scholars understood clearly that the
whole sensibility of the daoxue project was suffused with an emphasis
on cosmic process. Hence, if process was so essential to the working
of Zhu's system, how could principle, as a critical philosophical
trait, itself be without the living creativity of process? In the
words of the Yijing or Book of Changes, if the very spirit of the Dao
is shengsheng buxi or the generation [of the myriad things] without
cessation, then how does this notion of genuine cosmological
creativity inform the proper interpretation of principle as the key
trait of the formal side of Zhu's master narrative?
Yi Yulgok, the younger of the two giants of Korean Neo-Confucianism,
gave the most creative response to this question. Yulgok is often
portrayed as a proponent of a qi-monism wherein Yulgok defends the
primacy of process sensibilities in daoxue by augmenting the role of
vital force at the expense of principle. While Yulgok does indeed have
all kinds of illuminating insights into the role of vital force, he
never abandons a deep concern for the role of principle. Yulgok
forthrightly links the notion of principle creatively with the equally
important concept of cheng or the self-actualization of the
mind-heart. In making this strong linkage, Yulgok is able to defend
the thesis that principle itself is a vital manifestation of the
living creativity of the Dao as the ceaseless generation of the myriad
things. It was a philosophical tour-de-force and is probably the most
imaginative reinterpretation of Zhu's daoxue to be found in
traditional East Asia.
b. Kaibara Ekken
In 17th century Tokugawa Japan Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714) provides an
exemplar of the Japanese contribution to the refinement of
Neo-Confucian discourse. Ekken, like so many other great Confucian
scholars, was something of a renaissance figure. This social concern
manifested itself in some very traditional ventures such as the
publication of his famous Precepts for Daily Life in Japan, wherein he
tried to give advice about how Confucian principles could be applied
to the conduct of concrete daily life. Moreover, this passion for the
concrete details of daily life also led to a fervent naturalist
concern for the world of plants, animals, fish and even shellfish.
Ekken not only wrote about these humble creatures but, like many early
Western naturalists, provided illustrations of these plants and
animals.
Ekken's concern for the dynamic processes of the quotidian world also
led him to reread Zhu Xi's daoxue in a dramatic way. For instance,
Ekken argued that the Supreme Ultimate/Polarity was not some kind of
abstract pattern but actually the correct name for the primordial qi
before it began to divide into the yin and yang forces. Ekken did not
abandon Zhu's category of principle but rather read the cosmos via a
stronger emphasis on the dynamic role of vital force. "The 'Way of the
sage' is the principle of life and growth of heaven and earth; the
original qi harmonizing the yin and yang in ceaseless fecundity"
(Tucker 1989: 81). Ekken made a further deduction from his
re-evaluation of the role of vital force, namely that there is no
ontological or cosmological ground for holding to a distinction
between the ideal nature, mandated by tian, and the physical nature or
endowment of the particular creature or person. It is for this reason
that Ekken is often held to be a champion of the primacy of a
qi-monism, but this kind of reduction does not do justice to Ekken's
subtle re-inscription of the various roles of concepts such as
principle, vital force and the Supreme Ultimate/Polarity within
daoxue. Just as with his Korean colleagues, Ekken's naturalistic
vision of the Confucian Dao was such that he believed the nature of
the Dao "flows through the seasons and never stops. It is the root of
all transformations and it is the place from which all things emerge;
it is the origin of all that is received from heaven" (Tucker 1989:
81).
The fate of Korean and Japanese Neo-Confucianism was subject to the
same immense impact of the arrival of the Western imperial powers. As
Korea and Japan struggled to find their ways in the modern world,
Neo-Confucianism seemed a historical part of their traditional
cultures and hardly something of great value for the transformations
of culture in the contemporary world dominated by the Western powers.
In this sense, the arrival of Western-inspired modernization marked
the end of the Neo-Confucian epoch in East Asia.
7. The Legacy of Neo-Confucianism
The arrival of the imperial Western powers in East Asia during the
nineteenth century caused an unprecedented challenge to the Confucian
traditions of the region. Never before had the countries of East Asia
faced a combination of military conquest, cultural attack and
infiltration by a powerful new civilization. Opium, guns and ideas
were pouring into Asia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
with catastrophic results for the sphere of Confucian East Asia. The
intellectual assault was as powerful – and perhaps even more
significant in the long term – as the material impositions of colonial
and semi-colonial regimes. No Asian tradition suffered more than the
Confucian Way.
Yet even in the darkest hours after 1911, a significant renewal
movement arose in East Asia in defense of the good to be recovered
from traditions such as Confucianism. Along with the revivals of
Daoism and Buddhism, there was a new movement in East Asia called in
English 'New Confucianism' in order to distinguish it from the
previous avatars of the Confucian Way. Although New Confucianism has
its obvious roots in the great achievements of the Song, Yuan, Ming
and Qing periods, it is also the child of intercultural dialogue with
Western philosophical movements and ideas. While it is too soon to
chart the course of New Confucianism, it is clear that some form of
the Confucian Way will not only survive into the 21st century but will
flourish anew in East Asia and farther abroad wherever the East Asian
Diaspora carries people for whom the Confucian Way functions as part
of their cultural background.
Hitherto, it is impossible to chart the changes wrought by either
contemporary philosophers who are dedicated to the revival and
reformation of the Confucian Way or by other scholars who are
interested in Confucian discourse as merely one important traditional
element for modern East Asian philosophers to utilize in terms of
their own constructive work. It is clear, however, that
Neo-Confucianism has now passed over into a completely new era, that
of New Confucian ecumenical dialogue and conversation with
philosophers from around the global city of a vastly expanded new
republic of letters.
8. References and Further Reading
Barrett, T. H. Li Ao: Buddhist, Taoist, or Neo-Confucian? Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1992.
Berthrong, John H. Transformations of the Confucian Way. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1998.
Berthrong, John H. and Berthrong, Evelyn Nagai. Confucianism: A Short
Introduction. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2000.
Black, Alison Harley. Man and Nature in the Philosophical Thought of
Wang Fu-chih. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1989.
Bol, Peter K. "This Culture of Ours": Intellectual Transition in T'ang
and Sung China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992.
Bresciani, Umberto. Reinventing Confucianism: The New Confucian
Movement. Taipei, Taiwan: The Taipei Ricci Institute for Chinese
Studies, 2001.
Chang, Carsun. The Development of Neo-Confucian Thought. 2 Vols. New
York: Bookman Associates, 1957-1962.
Chen, Chun. Neo-Confucian Terms Explained: The Pei-hsi tzu-I by Ch'en
Ch'un (1159-1223). Trans. and ed. Wing-tsit Chan. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1986.
Cheng, Chung-ying. New Dimensions of Confucian and Neo-Confucian
Philosophy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991.
Cheng, Chung-ying and Nicholad Bunnin, eds. Contemporary Chinese
Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002.
Ching, Julia. To Acquire Wisdom: The Way of Wang Yang-ming. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1976.
Ching, Julia. The Religious Thought of Chu Hsi. Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press, 2000.
Chu, Hsi and Lü Tsu-ch'ien. Reflections on Things at Hand: The
Neo-Confucian Anthology. Trans. Wing-tsit Chan. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1967.
Chung, Edward Y. J. The Korean Neo-Confucianism of Yi T'oegye and Yi
Yulgok: A Reappraisal of the "Four-Seven Thesis" and Its Practical
Implications for Self-Cultivation. Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press, 1995.
Elman, Benjamin A. From Philosophy to Philosophy: Intellectual and
Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1984.
Fung, Yu-lan. A History of Chinese Philosophy. 2 vols. Trans. Derk
Bodde. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952-53.
Graham, A. C. Two Chinese Philosophers: The Metaphysics of the
Brothers Ch'eng. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1992.
Hartman, Charles. Han Yü and the T'ang Search for Unity. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1986.
Henderson, John B. The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.
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