encyclopedia of philosophy: Modern Chinese Philosophy

The term "modern Chinese philosophy" is used here to denote various
Chinese philosophical trends in the short period between the
implementation of the constitutional "new policy" (1901) and the
abolition of the traditional examination system (1905) in the late
Qing (Ch'ing) dynasty and the rise and fall of the Republic of China
in mainland China (1911-1949). As an ancient cultural entity, China
seemed to be frozen in a time capsule for thousands of years until it
suddenly defrosted as a direct result of military invasions and
exploitation by the West and Japan since the Opium War of 1839-42.
Thus, one may argue that China had longer "classical" and "medieval"
periods than the West, whereas its "modern" period began relatively
recently. Modern Chinese philosophy is rooted historically in the
traditions of Buddhism, Confucianism, especially Neo-Confucianism, and
the Xixue ("Western Learning," that is, mathematics, natural sciences
and Christianity) that arose during the late Ming Dynasty (ca.
1552-1634) and flourished until the early Republic Period (1911-1923).
In particular, the Jingxue (School of Classical Studies), or classical
Confucianism, developed in the early Qing dynasty, which critiqued
Neo-Confucian thought as impractical and subjective and instead
championed a pragmatic approach to resolving China's dilemmas as a
nation, exerting a powerful influence on the development of modern
Chinese philosophy. Modern Chinese philosophers typically responded to
critiques of their heritage by both Chinese and Western thinkers
either by transforming Chinese tradition (as in the efforts of Zhang
Zhidong and Sun Yat-sen), defending it (as in the work of traditional
Buddhists and Confucians), or opposing it altogether (as in the legacy
of the May Fourth New Cultural Movement, including both its liberal
and its communist exponents). Many modern Chinese philosophers
advanced some form of political philosophy that simultaneously
promoted Chinese national confidence while problematizing China's
cultural and intellectual traditions. In spite of this, a striking
feature of most modern Chinese philosophy is its retrieval of
traditional Chinese thought as a resource for addressing 20th century
concerns.

1. Dividing Chinese Philosophy into Periods

With this demarcation in mind, the history of Chinese philosophy can
be divided into five phases: the ancient (ca. 1000 BCE-588 CE), the
medieval (589-959 CE), the Renaissance (960-1900 CE), the modern
(1901-1949 CE), and the contemporary (after 1949 CE). Roughly
speaking, many parallels to the history of Western philosophy can be
discerned in this division. Like Greek philosophy, ancient Chinese
philosophy was dominated by a spirit of fundamental humanism rather
than theistic enthusiasm. Like Christian scholasticism, medieval
Chinese philosophy was dominated by a religious concern displayed in
the teachings of the multifarious Buddhist schools. The Renaissance of
Chinese philosophy may be found in the Neo-Confucian movement that
lasted for one thousand years through four dynasties: the Song
(960-1279), Yuan (1280-1367), Ming (1368-1643) and Qing (1644-1911).
Finally, all schools of modern and contemporary Western thought have
prompted modern and contemporary Chinese philosophy to respond to
their profound challenges. These various modes of response include the
affirmation of tradition, the transformation of tradition, and the
abandonment of tradition, once and for all. Collectively, these three
modes of response function as the background to the development of
modern Chinese philosophy and also help identify three of its major
trends: the transformational trend (represented by Zhang Zhidong and
Sun Yat-sen), the traditional trend (represented by traditional
Buddhism, classical Confucianism, and Neo-Confucianism, respectively),
and the anti-traditional trend (represented by the Liberalism and the
Communism fostered by the May Fourth New Cultural Movement). While
there have been various developments within other minor schools, only
the major strains of thought will be treated briefly here.
2. Historical Background

Liang Qichao (1873-1930), a renowned early 20th century Chinese
philosopher, suggested in his The Chinese Academic History in the Past
Three Hundred Years (Zhongkuo jinsanbainien xueshushi) that modern
Chinese philosophy was rooted in the traditions of classical
Confucianism, Neo-Confucianism, Pure Land Buddhism, and the Xixue
("Western Learning," that is, mathematics, natural sciences and
Christianity) that arose during the late Ming Dynasty (ca. 1552-1634)
and flourished until the early Republic Period (1911-1923). As he
noted, there were two Confucian traditions handed down from the Han
dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) to the early Qing dynasty, namely, classical
Confucianism (Jingxue) and Neo-Confucianism (Lixue). The so-called
Lixue or Daoxue (the learning of reasons or of universal principles),
represented in the Song dynasty by Zhu Xi's Lixue (Rationalism) and Lu
Xiangshan's Xinxue (Idealism) and in the Ming dynasty by Wang Yangming
(a follower of Lu), can be regarded as a renaissance of the ideal of
humanity within Confucianism, yet it is a syncretic system composed of
various elements of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, sectarian Daoism, and
Confucianism (mainly based on the Analects, Mencius , Daxue (Great
Learning), Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean), and the Xicixuan
(Conspectus of the Book of Changes), the first four of which Zhu Xi
annotated and entitled the Four Books, which became the corpus of
Neo-Confucian teaching).

In opposition to the Neo-Confucian approach, there emerged the
so-called Jingxue (School of Classics Studies) or classical
Confucianism developed in the early Qing dynasty that was founded on
the study of the "Six Classics," that is the Yijing (Book of Changes),
the Shujing (Classic of Ancient History), the Shijing (Classic of
Poetry), the now-lost Yuejing (Classic of Music), the Lijing (Classic
of Propriety), and the Chunqiu (Annals of the Spring and Autumn
Period). Liang argued that the major difference between the two is
that Neo-Confucianism places great emphasis on abstractions such as
xin (mind), xing (human nature), li (reason), and qi (material-force)
and demonstrates little concern for practical affairs such as
economic, political, and military knowledge that will strengthen the
national defense, benefit the public welfare, and promote people's
livelihood. To find a scapegoat for the collapse of the Ming dynasty
(the last imperial regime led by ethnic Chinese), many late Ming
intellectuals blamed Wang Yangming's idealism for the ruin of their
country. Thus the Jingxue thinkers urged Confucius' genuine followers
to turn to the original Confucian teachings through exegesis, not only
of the Four Books, but of the Six Classics, which they supposed to be
uncontaminated by Buddhism and Daoism. As they observed, Confucius
taught his students with "Six Arts" (ritual, music, archery,
horse-riding, calligraphy, and mathematics), which were the basic
requirements for a gentleman of the pre-Qin era. These thinkers
regarded the "Six Arts" as examples of practical learning and claimed
that Confucius never made impractical, soul-seeking meditation or
discussions of mind, spirit, and human nature the primal tasks of
learning. In contrast to the subjective, idealistic approach applied
by Wang Yangming's school, the Jingxue thinkers promoted what they saw
as a more realistic, objective approach to the study of the Classics
and the pursuit of practical knowledge of agriculture, public
administration, economics, national defense, and so forth. Among them,
Ku Yanwu (1613-1682), Yan Yuan (1635-1704), and Dai Zhen (1724-1777)
made great contributions to late Ming pragmatism. Their criticisms of
Neo-Confucianism are still wielded with some force by those who
critique Neo-Confucian thought today.

Another major intellectual trend that had exercised great influence on
modern Chinese philosophy was Buddhism, a foreign religion that first
came to China in the late Han dynasty. From then onward, Buddhism
became popular with ordinary people as a folk belief for its promise
to satisfy their secular needs, and gradually became attractive to
scholars for the complexity and intricacy of its metaphysical and
psychological theories. Imbued with the humanistic teaching of
traditional philosophy, Chinese scholars found the Buddhist doctrines
of "emptiness" (sunyata) and "non-self" or "self-denial" (wuwo)
unacceptable until they were rendered intelligible and transformed in
terms of the Daoist doctrines of "non-being" (wu) and
"self-abstention" (wuyu), using the philosophical method of geyi
(analogous interpretation) produced by the Neo-Daoists of the 3rd to
5th centuries CE. Once thus accepted, the Buddhist doctrines
flourished in the Sui (590-617) and Tang (618-906) dynasties, during
which four major Chinese Buddhist schools developed: the Huayan
("Flower Garland," based on the Flower Ornament Sutra]), Tiantai
("Heavenly Platform," based on the Lotus Sutra), Chan
("Meditation"–better known by its Japanese equivalent, Zen–based on
the Vajracchedika Sutra and the Lankavatatra Sutra), and Jingtu ("Pure
Land," based on the Amitayus Sutra). Among these schools of Chinese
Buddhism, the greatest tension has existed between Chan, which has
maintained an iconoclastic attitude toward traditional Buddhist
precepts and scriptural study, and "Pure Land," whose theistic and
ritualistic flavor helped to ensure its widespread popularity
beginning in the Ming dynasty.

Finally, all schools of modern Chinese philosophy have submitted
themselves to tremendous influence from "Western Learning" or Xixue,
which flourished between the late Ming dynasty and the early Qing
dynasty through the importation of Western astronomy, geometry,
geography, mathematics, and natural sciences along with Christianity
by Jesuit missionary scholars such as Matteo Ricci (1552-1610). With
the help of Chinese scholars Xu Gunag-chi (1561-1633), Li Zhizao
(1565-1630), and others, Ricci translated Euclid's geometrical text
The Elements. His work Shiyi (True Ideas of God ) introduced the
scholastic concepts of "being," "substance," "essence," and
"existence" with a view to synthesizing the Christian view of the soul
with the Confucian theory of human nature. The prospect of "Western
Learning" was suddenly squelched by the Qing emperor Yongzheng (r.
1723-1735) on the grounds that the Jesuits were interfering in court
politics. "Western Learning" was revived after the Opium War, however,
and soon came into vogue among Chinese thinkers who opposed tradition
in the name of "modernization." The result has been most vividly
described by Wing-tsit Chan, who writes: "At the turn of the [20th]
century, ideas of Schopenhauer, Kant, Nietzsche, Rousseau, Tolstoy,
and Kropotkin were imported. After the intellectual renaissance of
1917, the movement advanced at a rapid pace. In the following decade,
important works of Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, James, Bergson, and Marx,
and others became available in Chinese. Dewey, Russell, and Dreisch
came to China to lecture, and special numbers of journals were devoted
to Nietzsche and Bergson… Almost every trend of thought had its
exponent. James, Bergson, Euken, Whitehead, Hocking, Schiller, T. H.
Creen, Carnap, and C. I. Lewis had their own following. For a time it
seemed Chinese thought was to be completely Westernized." (Chan
1963:743)
3. Transformational Trend in Modern Chinese Philosophy
a. Zhang Zhidong

From the late 19th century to the first half of the 20th century,
China suffered from ruthless exploitation and invasions by the Western
powers and Japan. Trammeled by many unfair treaties signed by the
defeated Qing government, China experienced a crisis of cultural
self-confidence as its traditions shattered, its society
disintegrated, and its empire perished. In the midst of this cultural,
societal, and political turmoil, many intellectuals prescribed various
remedies for the country's survival; among them, Zhang Zhidong
(1837-1909) was representative. In his Quanxue Pien (An Exhortation to
Learning, 1898), Zhang called for importing Western industrial and
economic knowledge and technology to meet China's practical needs
while at the same time preserving the leading position of Chinese
traditional learning in theory. His response to the impact of Western
knowledge is epitomized in the following phrases: "Taking Chinese
learning as 'substance,' that is, the foundation of culture, and
taking Western learning as 'function', that is, for the practical
purpose and utility," or to state briefly: "Chinese Learning as
Substance and Western Learning as Function" (Zhongti Xiyong). This can
be regarded as the first instance of the transformational trend in
modern Chinese philosophy before the birth of modern China in 1911.
b. Sun Yat-sen

Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), the Nationalist founder of the Republic of
China, led the overthrow of the Qing regime in 1911 after a long
series of revolutionary campaigns. Inspired by U.S. President Abraham
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, in 1919 Sun articulated "Three
Principles of the People" (Sanmin Zhuyi) on which the new democratic
Republic of China was to be founded: the Principle of Nationalism
(minzu zhuyi), the Principle of People's Sovereignty (minquan zhuyi),
and the Principle of People's Livelihood (minsheng zhuyi).

The first principle, the Principle of Nationalism, which corresponds
to Lincoln's idea of "a government of the people," maintains the
equality of all ethnic groups in China proper and seeks equal national
status for Chinese with all peoples of the world. This doctrine urges
all ethnic groups (mainly the Han, Hui [Chinese Muslims], Manchus,
Mongolians, and Tibetans) in China to unite as one nation so as to
retrieve China's national self-confidence and revitalize its national
creativity. According to Sun, his Nationalism promoted eight kinds of
national virtues: loyalty, fidelity, benevolence, love, honesty,
justice, harmony, and peace, all of which have their origin in Chinese
traditional culture but must be transformed to meet with the urgent
needs of modern society.

The second principle, the Principle of People's Sovereignty, which
corresponds to Lincoln's idea of "a government by the people," holds
that Chinese people must fight for their sovereignty through
revolutions in order to set up a democratic government. According to
Sun, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ideas that all men are born equal and
people's sovereignty is given by nature are merely ideals or
theoretical hypotheses found in classic political texts. In human
history, insisted Sun, no evidence can be found to support Rousseau's
views, and it was only through bloodshed that people ever acquired
their power, sovereignty, and equality. Thus, Sun urged all Chinese to
stand up for their rights, and to fight for their freedom and equality
by joining the course of revolution. Influenced by the meritocratic
Confucian civil service system of traditional China, Sun urged that
most of the executive offices of the government be assigned by way of
examination, instead of election. This is to separate people's power
from ability, so that people hold the power to govern while officials
have the ability to serve (quanneng qufen).

The third principle, the Principle of People's Livelihood, which
corresponds to Lincoln's idea of "a government for the people," claims
to provide a middle course between capitalism and communism and to
avoid either extreme by substituting the idea of "cooperative economy"
for that of "the free market." Based on the Principle of People's
Livelihood, Sun argued for the adoption of two policies: (a)
equalization of land ownership through taxation of property, and (b)
restriction of private capital and expansion of state capital.
Accordingly, the government should monopolize ownership and management
of electricity, banking, mass transportation, and so forth, and leave
medium- and small-sized businesses free room for their own
development. Thus, the third Principle takes people's livelihood in
food, clothing, housing, and transportation to be of primary
importance and demands that government assume full responsibility for
this.

Above all, Sun proclaimed that his "Three Principles of the People"
combined the choicest parts of Chinese and Western thinking with the
Golden Mean (zhongyong) as a guideline derived from Chinese tradition.
For example, the Principle of People's Sovereignty accepts the Western
idea of democracy but denies its origination from "natural law "; as
Sun observed, "all men are born unequal," and those born with more
intelligence and capability should serve those less favored by birth
with compassion. To philosophers who demand scientific rigor and
logical consistency, Sun's synthesis may not sound convincing, and may
seem to be largely based on personal observations and experience
without theoretical justifications. However, from a historical
perspective, Sun's "Three Principles" may be seen as a major effort at
introducing Western democratic ideas into China. In this sense, Sun's
attempt to combine Chinese tradition with Western modern thinking
should be regarded as a typical example of the transformational trend
in modern Chinese philosophy.
c. Chinese Scholasticism

The person who carried on the Christian tradition of Matteo Ricci in
the early 20th century was Wu Jingxiong (1899-1986), also known as
John C. H. Wu. A Roman Catholic and a scholar of jurisprudence, Wu
became the first Chinese to translate the Bible into classical Chinese
at the request of the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975)
in the 1930s. Wu saw Confucianism, Daoism and Chan Buddhism as the
main currents in Chinese philosophy. He then tried to combine the
Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition with Chinese philosophy. In many of
his works, such as "Mencius' Theory of Human Nature and Natural Law,"
"My Philosophy of Law: Natural Law in Evolution," and "Comparative
Studies in the Philosophy of Natural Law," Wu argued that the
Confucian Dao consists of a number of ethical principles which are
parallel to the "natural laws" in Christian scholasticism. For
instance, the Confucian concepts of "Heavenly Mandate" (tianming),
"human nature," and "edification" assume many similarities to the
"eternal law," "natural law," and "positive law" of scholastic
philosophy. (Shen 1993: 282-283) In a small pamphlet entitled "Joy in
Chinese Philosophy," published in the 1940s, Wu explicitly pointed out
that Confucianism, Daoism and Chan Buddhism all display a kind of
spiritual joy that can be subsumed under Christian joy. The Chinese
scholastic tradition is still carried on today, with Fu Jen Catholic
University in Taiwan as its center.
4. Anti-Traditional Trend in Modern Chinese Philosophy
a. Yan Fu and Western Learning

The importation of Western science into China, prohibited since the
early Qing, was renewed after the Opium War and gained tremendous
momentum from the military supremacy of Western powers then invading
China. To facilitate the introduction of Western military technology
in manufacturing guns and building ships, the Jiangnan Arsenal, the
first formal institution for Western learning in China, was
established in 1865, followed by the construction of the Fuzhou
Shipyard in 1866. The Qing government then changed its policy of
isolation and sent the first group of young children abroad for
foreign studies in 1872. Nonetheless, China's disastrous defeat in the
Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 further weakened Chinese confidence in
traditional culture and generated even greater enthusiasm among
intellectuals for the West as a complete source of knowledge. Yan Fu
(1853-1921), who studied in England from 1877 to 1879, was the first
Chinese scholar to introduce Western philosophy, science, and
political theory systematically by translating Thomas Huxley's
Evolution and Ethics, Herbert Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy, John
Stuart Mill's On Liberty, Montesquieu's L'Esprit des lois, and Adam
Smith's Wealth of Nations into Chinese. (Fung 1976: 326) He advocated
freedom of speech as the foundation of a civil society and thereby
laid the foundation for democracy and liberalism to flourish in China
in the early 20th century.
b. The May Fourth New Cultural Movement

Although he was an advocate of Western learning, Yan Fu rendered his
translations of Western works in the archaic classical form of the
Chinese language and consistently showed his respect for the
traditional culture. In contrast, many of his followers turned their
back on traditional culture and tried to forsake it completely. In
fact, the major trend of modern Chinese philosophy could be
characterized as an overall antagonism toward the intellectual and
cultural traditions, which reached its height during the so-called
"May Fourth New Cultural Movement" (wushi xinwenhua yundong). (Kwok
1965: 8-17)

Soon after Sun Yat-sen established the Republic of China, he was
elected its President. He then abdicated his presidency to the warlord
Yuan Shihkai (1859-1916). Yuan died after failing to restore the
imperial regime with himself as emperor, leaving behind a corrupt
government that secretly depended upon Japanese financing. In the
beginning, the May Fourth Movement was purely a patriotic student
movement provoked by the government's intention to sign the Versailles
Treaty (which promised to concede Germany's monopoly in Shandong
Province to Japan instead of giving it back to China, in spite of
China's contributions to the Allied Powers in the First World War). On
May 4, 1919, Beijing University students demonstrated in protest
against the government and burned the houses of the officials
involved. The movement soon spread all over the whole country, many
schools and business were closed down, and the Japanese goods were
boycotted by the people as a sign of support for the student movement.

Politically, the movement was successful, as it prevented the
government from signing the Versailles Treaty. But it also proved to
be a fatal stroke to traditional culture and Chinese national
confidence. Most of the student leaders in this movement, such as Hu
Shi (1891-1962), Cai Yuanpei (1868-1940), Wu Zhihui (1865-1953), Wu Yu
(1872-1949), Lo Jialun (1897-1969), Chen Duxiu (1897-1942), and Li
Dazhao (1889-1927), later turned to the major figures of an even
greater new cultural and political movement that was at first called
the "Vernacular Movement" (paihaowen yundong), then the "New Cultural
Movement" (xinwenhua yundong). The movement called for an overall
reform of Chinese culture and made "Mr. Science and Ms. Democracy" its
icons. The rebellious spirit provoked by the two slogans, which seemed
to be the panacea for the desperate situation of China, ended by
bringing about an extremely violent campaign against Confucianism. The
movement then divided into two camps: one led by the liberal Hu Shi,
the other led by the communist Chen Duxiu.
c. Hu Shi

Hu Shi, a student of John Dewey at Columbia University in the United
States, invited his teacher to lecture at Shanghai when the May Fourth
Movement broke out in Beijing. Hu soon became the chief leader of the
New Cultural Movement by promoting a pragmatic, critical spirit and by
applying "scientific method" in every branch of human studies. He
proclaimed that archaic language failed to convey real-life experience
and should be replaced by vernacular language in literature, that
classical literature handed down from the remote past should be
reexamined to determine whether it represented true experience or
scholarly forgery, and that Confucianism had misled the Chinese people
by teaching them to subordinate themselves to the authorities of
sovereign, father, family, and the state. Similarly, Hu blamed Daoism
for teaching the Chinese people to comply with nature, instead of
understanding and controlling nature. Hu praised the early Chinese
philosophical school known as Mohism–not because of its high moral
commitment, but because he regarded it as possibly the earliest form
of pragmatism in Chinese intellectual history. In this spirit of new
literary movement, Hu Shi published the first book in Chinese
vernacular language, Outlines of the History of Chinese Philosophy
(1919), which dismissed the traditional sacred image of Confucianism.
Above all, Hu advocated the scientific method in doing any research
work with the maxim "make hypotheses boldly, but verify them
carefully." A believer in scientism, Hu advocated pragmatism and
devalued traditional Chinese culture on the grounds that it was
deficient in the elements of science and democracy.
d. Chen Duxiu

While Chen Duxiu shared Hu's pro-democratic, pro-scientific, and
anti-Confucian sentiments, he rejected Hu's individualist liberalism
and helped to found the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. Chen, editor
of the most influential journal of the New Cultural Movement, New
Youth, was influenced by French democratic thought and Russian Marxist
theory. He saw Chinese traditions, chiefly Confucianism, as
incompatible with science and democracy, and called for an end to what
he saw as an emblem of obscurantism and dogmatism. Deeply impressed by
French thinkers, he enumerated their achievements in democracy (as
seen in the work of Lafayette and Seignobos), evolutionary theory (in
Lamarck), and socialism (in Babeuf, Saint-Simon, and Fourier).
Influenced by his predecessor Li Shizeng (1881-1973), the first
Chinese to study in France and the transmitter of Pyotr Kropotkin's
anarchist doctrines prior to the May Fourth Movement, Chen once was an
anarchist. He then came to embrace dialectical materialism and
propagate Marxism strongly as the only remedy for a feeble China. In
1920, he wrote: "The republic cannot give happiness to the people….
Evolution goes from feudalism to republicanism and from republicanism
to communism. I have said that the republic has failed and that
feudalism has been reborn, but I hope that soon the feudal forces will
be wiped out again by democracy and the latter by socialism…for I am
convinced that the creation of a proletarian state is the most urgent
revolution in China." (Briere 1956: 24) These statements prefigure the
birth of the People's Republic of China which replaced the Republic of
China as the regime in mainland China after 1949 and made Marxism the
only authority in modern Chinese philosophy.
e. The Debate of 1923

The tide of anti-Confucianism reached another height in 1923 in "The
Debate between Metaphysicians and Scientists," held chiefly by the
geologist, Ding Wenjiang (1887-1936), and the Neo-Confucian thinker
Zhang Junmei (1887-1969), later known as Carsun Chang. (Briere 1956:
16-17, 135-160; Kwok 1965: 29-31) Chang (Zhang), a disciple of Liang
Qichao, gave a lecture on "the philosophy of life" at Qinghua
University in Beijing in which he maintained that intuitive conscience
and free will were the foundation of a happy life free from the sway
of mechanical laws and argued that traditional Confucianism, including
Neo-Confucianism, had made great contributions toward bringing about a
great spiritual civilization by offering solutions for the problems of
life to which science and technology had no answers. These remarks
received an immediate rebuke from Ding in an article entitled "Science
and Metaphysics," in which he accused Chang of mixing Bergsonian
intuitionism of élan vital with the intuitionism of Wang Yangming,
thus recalling the specter of metaphysics in a positivist age. Ding,
who championed the work of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, et al, asserted
that science is all-sufficient, not only in its subject matter, but
also in its methodical procedure. According to Ding, science's object
is to search for universal truth by objectively excluding any
personal, subjective prejudices, while the metaphysician can only
introduce a supersensible world that is beyond human cognition and
constructed from empty words.

In response, Chang retorted that manifestly there is knowledge outside
of science, such as truths and hypotheses in philosophy and religion
that cannot be verified by scientific criteria. Science, argued Chang,
is far from being omnipotent: it is as limited in its scope as in its
methods. Chang's mentor, Liang Qichao, soon came to his aid and took
on the role of an arbitrator in an article entitled "The View of Life
and Science." One the one hand, Liang criticized Chang for overstating
the function of intuition and free will that leads to an undesirable
subjective individualism and maintained that most of the "problems of
life" can be solved with help of scientific knowledge. On the other
hand, Liang supported Chang's denial of the omnipotence of scientific
knowledge and asserted that our understanding of beauty, love,
religious experience, moral sentiment, aesthetic feeling, and so
forth, can never proceed through scientific methods. (Briere 1956: 30)

The debate lasted more than one year. In addition to Liang Qichao,
Liang Shuming (1893-1988) and Zhang Dungsun (1886-1962) sided with
Chang, while Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu, Wu Zhihui and many others were in
Ding's camp. In the end, Ding's "scientific" faction prevailed and
paved the way for another wave of cultural reform, the so-called
"Movement of Overall Westernization" (quanpan xihua) that sought a
complete abandonment of traditional culture and a replacement of a
backward, conservative way of life with a Westernized, modern way of
life.
5. Traditional Trend in Modern Chinese Philosophy
a. Yang Rensan and the Buddhist Renaissance

In the early 20th century, the Chinese Buddhist school of Weishi,
founded by Xuanzang during the Tang dynasty, was revived by Yang
Rensan (1837-1911) and Ouyang Jinwu (1871-1943). Yang has been called
the "Father of Modern Buddhism" because of his establishment of the
"Nanjing Inscription Place for Sutras" (Jinglin Yinkechu) in 1866,
which greatly contributed to the maintenance of Buddhist literature
and the education of young monks. Yang advanced the Dashengcixin Lun
(Essays on Awakening the Faith in Mahayana Buddhism) as the key work
for understanding the essence of Buddha's teaching. This text promotes
the doctrine of "One Mind Opens Two Ways" (yixin kai ermen), according
to which "Two Ways" refers to the Way of Real Mind (xinzhenru men) or
the category of reality, noumena, suchness, and so forth, and the Way
of Passing Mind (xinshengmei men), or the category of appearance,
phenomena, ephemerality, and so on. In Yang's understanding, the
doctrine of "One Mind Opens Two Ways" provides a full account of life
and death, which is the basic concern of Buddhism. All Buddhist
practices aim at helping people to achieve Buddhahood and freedom from
suffering, conditioned existence in cyclical rebirth (samsara). For
Yang, these aims are made possible because both one's suffering and
one's redemption from suffering coexist in one's mind. Once one
discovers his immaculate nature, which is pure, pristine, changeless
and irremovable, then he will achieve Buddhahood. However, if he is
entangled by ignorance, greed, anger, wantonness, and evils, then he
will continue to suffer from cyclical birth and death (although
essentially these will not affect his immaculate nature). Thus in
Yang's view, the study of mind and consciousness (in the sense of
activity-consciousness or yehshi) is of primal importance and can be
best accomplished through this type of Buddhist discipline.
b. Ou-Yang Jingwu and the Chinese Academy of Buddhism

Yang's idea deeply impressed his disciple Ouyang Jingwu, a forerunner
of both modern Chinese Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism (whose leading
figure, Xiong Shili [1885-1968], was a disciple of Ouyang). Ouyang
originally was a Neo-Confucian familiar with Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming
who eventually tired of the "empty talk" of Neo-Confucianism and
became interested in Yang's Weishi Buddhism. In 1922, carrying on
Yang's career of reprinting Buddhist literature and promoting Buddhist
education, Ouyang founded the Chinese Academy of Buddhism (Zhina
Neixueyuan) at Nanjing, which soon became the center for Weishi
studies. Ouyang himself republished the most important classic of
Weishi, the Yogacaryabhumi Sastra (Yoga Masters on the Spiritual
Levels of Buddhist Practice or Yujiashidi Lun), with an introduction
that was highly praised by the Buddhist academic community of the
time. Before this, in 1921, he gave a lecture entitled "Buddhist
Teaching is neither a Religion nor a Philosophy" at Nanjing Normal
High School in which he distinguished Buddhism from both religion and
philosophy. In Ouyang's view, Buddhism does not teach the belief in
the existence of God or gods, nor does it maintain any relations
coalescing God and man, so it should not be regarded as a "religion"
in the Western theistic sense. Again, the term "philosophy" does not
apply to Buddhism either, as the former has no concern of the ultimate
destiny of man and pays no attention to achieving the highest
spiritual status through self-cultivation. Thus, Ouyang praised
Buddhism as the all-encompassing learning that covers cosmology,
epistemology, psychology, and the issue of life and death–as the only
learning, in fact, that will help people to solve the problem of life
and death.

Although a faithful follower of Yang, Ouyang did not accept all his
master's views without reservation. He differed from Yang in his
understanding of the significance and adequacy of the Essays on
Awakening the Faith in Mahayana Buddhism. Yang appreciated the work
for its union of "reality" with "appearance" in one mind; Ouyang,
however, criticized this doctrine severely according to the principle
of "Distinguishing Substance from Function" (jianbie tiyong). Ouyang
argued that "reality" or suchness indicates the substance and essence
of a thing, whereas "appearance" or the sensible merely indicates the
function or work of a thing. These two belong to different levels of
category and should not be taken indiscriminately, as the Essays do.
Ouyang then tried to go beyond Weishi, and studied Avatamsaka Sutra
and Mahaparinirvana Sutra in his later years with the purpose of
expanding and advancing modern Buddhist thought. With his effort,
Chinese Buddhism flourished once again in the early 1920s and '30s,
and many celebrities such as Liang Qichao and Cai Yuanpei came to
Ouyang's help to sponsor the Chinese Academy of Buddhism. His thought
has proven to be quite influential on subsequent Chinese Buddhist and
Neo-Confucian thinkers, including Tai Xu (1890-1947), Lu Cheng
(1896-1989), and the aforementioned Xiong Shili.
c. Liang Shuming and Neo-Confucianism

The Buddhist renaissance mentioned above may be regarded as the most
insulated quarter of modern Chinese philosophy, insofar as it paid no
attention to the prevalence of Western philosophy in China and
maintained itself firmly on the traditional track. Modern
Confucianism, however, pursued a combined course, partly following the
traditional way and partly transforming itself in response to the
challenge of Western culture. Among the traditional Confucianists, the
late Qing reformer and mentor of Liang Qichao, Kang Yuwei (1858-1927),
might be regarded as the last Confucian who was convinced that China
could solve its problems by traditional learning alone. Even after the
complete rejection of Confucianism by Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu in the
early 1920s, Confucianism still retained its defenders. Most notable
among these was Liang Shuming, who published Dongxiwenhua jichizhexue
(The Oriental and Occidental Cultures and Their Philosophies) in 1922.
In this book, Liang attempted a macro-scale analysis of Eastern and
Western cultures and divided the development of world cultures into
three different stages: (1) the objective, (2) the moderate, and (3)
the divine, which correspond to three kinds of life attitude — the
outward, the inward, and the backward, respectively. According to
Liang, modern European culture with its objective spirit should be
ascribed to the first stage. People who live in this culture aim to
understand and exploit nature in order to satisfy their mounting needs
and desires, and therefore assume an outward life attitude, an
attitude of aggression, striving, progression, and competition. In
Liang's view, Chinese culture could be ascribed to the second stage,
as the Chinese knew quite well that excess desire for material goods
undermines the true happiness of humankind. Without undergoing the
first stage, Chinese culture came directly to the second stage and
thus was in fact morally precocious, adopting an inward life attitude
of moderation and pursuing the equilibrium of humanity and nature, a
harmonization of reason and emotions. Finally, Liang saw Indian
culture as representative of the last stage, in which high wisdom
teaches people to abstain from desire and pleasure and make them
assume a backward life attitude toward this sensual world. "In short,"
Liang argued, "it is necessary to reject Indian culture as useless, to
modify Western culture with true happiness in view, and to reassert
the value of Chinese culture." In Liang's optimistic vision, "The
world culture will eventually be the renovated Chinese culture." Thus
from a more or less spiritualistic outlook, Liang provided a different
evaluation of Chinese traditional culture by offering a broader
picture of the total developments of human civilization and its
destiny, though without founding arguments.
d. Fung Yulan and Neo-Confucianism

The renowned scholar Fung Yulan (1895-1990), a contemporary of Liang,
was another important figure in the camp of Confucian defense. Fung,
like Hu, had also been a student of John Dewey, as he studied at
Columbia University from 1919 to 1924 and received his Ph.D. there. He
then returned to China, where he mainly taught at Qinghua University
and edited a professional journal, Philosophical Critique (1927-1937),
with Hu Shi, Carsun Chang, Zhang Dongsun, et al. In 1934, Fung
published the first volume of his History of Chinese Philosophy, which
was translated into English in 1937 and became the first book on this
subject in English. From 1939 to 1947, Fung published a series of
books under the title of Xinlixue (New Rational Philosophy) that made
him the initiator of modern Neo-Confucian movement. Carrying on the
traditions of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism, Fung's "New Rational
Philosophy" was based on four concepts: principle (li), material force
(qi), the substance of Dao or Way (daoti), and the Great Whole
(daquan). Roughly speaking, Fung assumed a realist outlook and laid
out the basic tenets of his philosophy as follows. First, everything
exists as something really exists, and it is inherent within itself as
a "principle" that makes it what it is. Second, everything exists by
taking its shape from material force; since the "principle" is
eternal, universal, and abstract, there must be something that is
temporal, particular, and concrete to make a thing really exist.
Third, whatever exists, exists in a flux. The totality of ephemeral
phenomena and the transient world is called the substance of Dao.
Fourth, the totality of whatever exists, the ultimate existence, is
called the Great Whole. Borrowing the totalistic concept from
Buddhism, Fung sees the Great Whole as an indication that, in the
ultimate reality, "one is all and all is one." In addition, The Great
Whole is also the life-purpose of a philosopher who tries to
understand the external world, to realize his potential abilities, and
to serve Heaven: that is, to fulfill humanity. Thus, Fung was
basically a Neo-Confucian of Zhu Xi's type, who maintained that
universal principles should be the foundations of a moral cosmos in
which humanity can be fulfilled. This can be seen in Fung's paper
"Chinese Philosophy and a Future World Philosophy," published in 1948
by The Philosophical Review, which makes comparisons between Plato and
Zhu Xi, Immanuel Kant and the Daoists, and establishes human
perfection as the major goal of Confucianism.
e. Carsun Chang and Neo-Confucianism

Though Fung was the first modern Chinese philosopher who carried on
the traditions of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism by elaborating its
metaphysical systems, it was Carsun Chang who literally gave birth to
the term "Neo-Confucianism" or Xinjujia and provided a great impetus
to the later "New Confucian" movement in Hong Kong and Taiwan. As
mentioned before, in the "Debate of 1923," Chang allied himself with
Liang Qichao and Liang Shuming in fighting against the torrents of
anti-Confucianism and scientism. However, like Fung, Chang was
acquainted with Western culture and studied abroad in Japan and
Germany. In 1918, Chang studied with the German idealist Rudolf Eucken
at Jena University. Despite his interest in philosophy, he threw
himself into politics and founded a party which was at first called
"National Socialist," and then "Social Democrat." In 1957, after
immigrating to the United States, Chang returned to his past interests
and wrote The Development of Neo-Confucian Thought, which gives a full
account of Neo-Confucianism from the Tang thinker Han Yu (768-824) to
the beginning of the early Republican period and freely associates
Neo-Confucianism and Chan Buddhism with Western idealism and
liberalism. The book was the first work on Neo-Confucianism in English
and in it, Chang coined the term "Neo-Confucianism," since widely used
by academics in both the East and the West.
f. Xiong Shili and Neo-Confucianism

Another representative of modern Neo-Confucianism was Xiong Shili.
Xiong was deeply influenced by Ouyang's Buddhist thought, but rejected
his teacher's doctrine of "Distinguishing Substance from Function." In
1944, he wrote Xinweishi lun (New Doctrine of Consciousness-Only) in
which he attempted to synthesize Chan Buddhism with the idealism of
Neo-Confucianism and to criticize the Consciousness-Only school.
According to Xiong, reality is in perpetual transformation, consisting
of unceasing "closing" and "opening" movements, with everything
arising from these movements. The universe in its "closing" aspect is
prone to integrate substantial things, and the outcome may be called
"matter." While in its opening aspect, the universe intends to
maintain its own nature and be its own master, and the outcome may be
called "mind." This mind itself is one part of the "original mind,"
which implies the activities of consciousness and will as well. Both
"closing" and "opening" are the functions of the universe, but they
are the manifestations of the substance of the universe, too. Thus,
there should be no separation or distinction of "substance" from
"function," as the "Consciousness-Only" school taught. The
"Consciousness-Only" school maintains that there are two different
realms, namely, the realm of temporality or phenomena (the realm of
alaya) and the realm of suchness or noumena. Taking alaya as the cause
of the consciousness, consciousness becomes the effect of alaya. In
Xiong's view, all these separations are due to the misleading doctrine
of "Distinguishing Substance from Function" and should be lifted
according to the doctrine of "Substance as Function." Here, the
concepts of "closing" and "opening" seem to be adopted from the Book
of Changes and become the cornerstones of Xiong's cosmology. Thus,
with a strong inclination to Wang Yangming's idealism, Xiong made
personal experience and self-awareness the only foundation of reality,
which his critics maintained failed to do justice to the objective
existence of the universe.

Xiong's Neo-Confucian thought exercised great influence on his
followers, especially Mou Zongsan (1909-1973) and Tang Junyi
(1909-1978). After 1958, Mou and Tang taught at the the Chinese
University of Hong Kong's New Asia College and made Neo-Confucianism a
popular school within modern Chinese philosophy.
g. Wang Kuowei and Classical Confucianism

Although Neo-Confucianism was predominant in modern Chinese
philosophy, there was an unpopular strain of thought derived from the
tradition of "classical Confucianism" of the early Qing that stood in
opposition to Neo-Confucianism. The arguments between the two can be
traced back to Wang Kuowei (1877-1927)'s critique of Zhang Zhidong's
denial of the value of philosophy. After its defeat in the Boxers'
Rebellion of 1900 by the Alliance of Eight Nations, the Qing
government finally determined to implement its "New Policy" for
constitutional and educational reforms. Zhang Zhidong was in charge of
educational reform and assigned the office to stipulate the articles
for the establishment of modern schools in China. As noted above,
Zhang held a doctrine of "Chinese Learning as Substance and Western
Learning as Function," and contrived to preserve the dominant position
of traditional learning. As a Neo-Confucian, Zhang took the Lixue of
the Song as the authority of traditional learning and deemed Western
philosophy to be poisonous, useless, and incompatible with Lixue, on
the grounds that democratic theories in Western philosophy might
spread dangerous ideas of freedom and human rights throughout China
and result in unpredictable social upheavals. He then decided to
eliminate "philosophy" from the undergraduate curriculum and replace
it with "Neo-Confucianism." Zhang's decision was severely criticized
by Wang Kuowei in his Zhexue Pienhuo (An Answer to the Doubt of
Philosophy) (1903). Wang accused Zhang of espousing a narrow-minded,
vulgar Confucian mode of thinking that attempted to grant a franchise
to Neo-Confucianism in an era seeking for freedom of thought. He
argued that philosophy should not be deemed poisonous or useless as it
comprises broader scope than politics and jurisprudence that teaches
the ideas of freedom and equality, and utility should never be taken
as a standard to which philosophy has to meet. The function of
philosophy is to answer the metaphysical impetus of human beings for
truth, goodness and beauty, instead of the need for utility. Deeply
impressed by the systematic and logical rigorousness of Western
philosophy, Wang contended that Western philosophy was a necessary
intellectual resource for scholars who wished to analyze and
reinterpret Chinese philosophy. Again, the value of Confucianism can
only be properly estimated after one has full knowledge and an overall
understanding of all the teachings of Chinese and Western philosophy.
Neo-Confucianism is but only one of the Confucian schools and
Confucianism is but only one of the schools of Chinese philosophy
alongside Daoism, Mohism, Legalism, and so forth. Thus, Wang saw no
reason to make Neo-Confucianism the authority of traditional learning
or to exclude the teaching of Western philosophy from universities.
Accordingly, Wang suggested that scholars expand the scope of
traditional learning and to go beyond Neo-Confucianism or even
Confucianism.

It is worth noting that Wang Kuowei himself was the first Chinese
scholar to introduce Western philosophy with better understanding and
deeper insight than Yan Fu. Before he was thirty, Wang had already
studied Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Schopenhauer's The Fourfold
Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, The World as Will and
Representation, and On the Will in Nature through Japanese and English
translations, and was deeply impressed by the two German philosophers.
When dealing with the most abstruse European philosophy, Wang admitted
that he could hardly understand Kant. It was through studying
Schopenhauer's criticism of Kant's doctrine of "thing-in-itself" that
Kant became apprehensible to him. Wang was also familiar with Thomas
Hobbes, Francis Bacon, John Locke , David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, and
other Western thinkers by studying Henry Sidgwick's Outlines of the
History of Ethics. One would not be going too far in saying that Wang
was the first Chinese scholar with such a broad knowledge of Western
philosophy. Nonetheless, after the age of thirty, Wang gave up the
study of philosophy and turned to Chinese classics, history and
literature, which made him eventually one of the greatest Chinese
historians, archaeologists, and men of letters. The brilliant scholar
ended his own life in the Kunming Lake of Yihe Royal Garden when he
was only fifty years old.
h. Thome Fang and Classical Confucianism

Among the modern Chinese philosophers who flourished in the early
1930s, Thome Fang (1899-1977) was the true follower of Wang Kuowei. He
shared Wang's refutation of the narrowness of Neo-Confucianism and
confirmed Wang's assertion of the significance of philosophy. Like
Wang, Fang had received a solid classical education as a result of his
family upbringing, from which he developed a strong conviction of the
preeminence of traditional Chinese culture. He also had a
comprehensive knowledge of Western philosophy, having received his
Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in
1924. Fang was in fact the first Chinese scholar to introduce a number
of Western writers, including ancient Greek tragedians and the
philosophers George Santayana and Alfred North Whitehead, to Chinese
readers. When he began his philosophical career in 1926 by teaching at
the Central University of Nanjing, he published a series of papers on
science, philosophy, and life. In these papers Fang gave high
appraisal to Whitehead's opposition to scientific materialism and
agreed to Whitehead's criticism of the fallacies of "bifurcation of
nature" and "misplaced concreteness," which are the presuppositions of
scientific knowledge. Among the various Western philosophical strains,
Fang found that Greek philosophy was the one closest to original
Confucianism and saw Whitehead's concept of nature as "creative
advance" as parallel to the concept of "creativity" in the Book of
Changes, whereas he regarded modern European philosophy as constantly
trapped by all kinds of dualism and thus at variance with Chinese
philosophy. In "Three Types of Philosophical Wisdom" (1938), Fang
maintained that there are three types of philosophical wisdom, the
ancient Greek, the modern European and the classic Chinese, which
represent the most significant cultural aspects in the development of
human history. In Fang's account, the ancient Greeks praised reason
and took reality to be the realm of the intelligible, the modern
Europeans scrutinized nature and developed science and technology
successfully, whereas the Chinese eulogized humanity and enshrined
universal principles–Dao–in the highest place of their philosophical
system. Thus for Fang the Greek speculative wisdom, the European
technological wisdom and the Chinese moderate wisdom can be
characterized by rationality, efficiency, and universal equity
respectively. And if these three types of wisdom can be incorporated
into a coherent whole, with one complementing to the others, so Fang
imagined, the most desirable form of world culture would emerge.

In addition, according to Fang, Chinese wisdom is best represented by
Confucius's interpretations of the Book of Changes, Laozi's doctrine
of Dao, and Mozi's ideal of mutual love, which he saw as the most
important elements of Chinese philosophy. In contrast, Fang rejected
sectarian Daoism and Neo-Confucianism as decadent forms of original
Daoism and Confucianism, insofar as sectarian Daoism is greatly
involved with popular folk beliefs and yinyang theory and
Neo-Confucianism transforms the cosmology of the Book of Changes into
a kind of materialistic cosmogony. Even so, Fang was the first modern
Chinese philosopher who recognized the philosophical significance of
the Book of Changes, convening regular meetings with several scholars
to explore and discuss the philosophical implications of this classic
text from 1935 to 1937 in Nanjing and jointly publishing Yixue
Taolunji (A Collection of Papers on the Book of Changes) (1937), the
first work to study the Book of Changes in connection with Western
philosophy, inspiring a new generation of Chinese scholars to approach
the text in this way.
6. References and Further Reading
Briere, O. Fifty Years of Chinese Philosophy 1898-1950. Trans.
Laurence G. Thompson. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1956.
Chan, Wing-tsit, ed. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1963.
Chang, Carsun. The Development of Neo-Confucian Thought. New York:
Bookman Associates, 1957.
Dubs, Homer H. "Recent Chinese Philosophy." The Journal of Philosophy
35 (1938): 345-355. Fang, Thome. Chinese Philosophy: Its Spirit and
Its Development. Taipei: Linking Publishing Co., Ltd., 1981.
Fung, Yu-lan, "Chinese Philosophy and a Future World Philosophy." The
Philosophical Review 57 (1948): 539-549.
Fung, Yu-lan. A Short History of Chinese Philosophy. Ed. Derk Bodde.
New York: The Free Press, 1976.
Kwok, D.W.Y. Scientism in Chinese Thought, 1900-1950. New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1965.
Schwartz, Benjamin I. In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the
West. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964.
Shen, Vincent. "Creativity as Synthesis of Contrasting Wisdoms: An
Interpretation of Chinese Philosophy in Taiwan since 1949." Philosophy
East and West A Quarterly of Comparative Philosophy 43 (1993):
179-287.
Sun, Yat-sen. The Three Principles of the People. Trans. Frank W.
Price. Taipei: China Publishing Company, 1981.

encyclopedia of philosophy

Friday, September 4, 2009

Modern Chinese Philosophy

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