Chinese Intellectual History Research Articles

Global Science and Comparative History: Jesuits, Science, and Philology in China and Europe, 1550-1850

[Benjamin Elman is Professor of East Asian Studies and History at Princeton University. He specializes in late imperial Chinese intellectual history and in the history of science and education. His recent book is entitled On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550-1900 (Harvard University Press, 2005). Previously he has published A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China, 1600-1900 (University of California Press, 2000).]

A NEW HERMENEUTICAL APPROACH TO EARLY CHINESE TEXTS: THE CASE OF THE ANALECTS

Journal of Chinese PhilosophyVolume 33, Issue s1 p. 95-108 A NEW HERMENEUTICAL APPROACH TO EARLY CHINESE TEXTS: THE CASE OF THE ANALECTS JOHN MAKEHAM, Corresponding Author JOHN MAKEHAM Canberra, AustraliaJOHN MAKEHAM, reader in Chinese Studies, China and Korea Centre, Australian National University. Specialities: Chinese intellectual history. E-mail: john.makeham@anu.edu.auSearch for more papers by this author JOHN MAKEHAM, Corresponding Author JOHN MAKEHAM Canberra, AustraliaJOHN MAKEHAM, reader in Chinese Studies, China and Korea Centre, Australian National University. Specialities: Chinese intellectual history. E-mail: john.makeham@anu.edu.auSearch for more papers by this author First published: 13 December 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6253.2006.00393.xCitations: 1 Editor's note: This article was originally published in Sophia 41, no. 1 (May 2002): 55–69. It is republished here with permission from Ashgate Publishing Limited. Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume33, Issues1December 2006Pages 95-108 RelatedInformation

ASPECTS OF THE CHINESE RECEPTION OF KANT

Journal of Chinese PhilosophyVolume 33, Issue 1 p. 141-157 ASPECTS OF THE CHINESE RECEPTION OF KANT MARTIN MÜLLER, MARTIN MÜLLER COLOGNE UNIVERSITY Cologne, Germany MARTIN MÜLLER, research fellow of German Academic Exchange Service and associate instructor of Cologne University. Specialties: modern Chinese intellectual history, hermeneutics, and methodological problems of sinology. E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author MARTIN MÜLLER, MARTIN MÜLLER COLOGNE UNIVERSITY Cologne, Germany MARTIN MÜLLER, research fellow of German Academic Exchange Service and associate instructor of Cologne University. Specialties: modern Chinese intellectual history, hermeneutics, and methodological problems of sinology. E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author First published: 21 February 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6253.2006.00341.xCitations: 1 Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Citing Literature Volume33, Issue1March 2006Pages 141-157 RelatedInformation

Zhu Xi's Reading of the Analects: Canon, Commentary, and the Classical Tradition (review)

Reviewed by: Zhu Xi's Reading of the Analects: Canon, Commentary , and the Classical Tradition Suck Choi (bio) Daniel K. Gardner . Zhu Xi's Reading of the Analects: Canon, Commentary , and the Classical Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 226 pp. Paperback $19.50, ISBN 0-231-12865-7. This book is Daniel K. Gardner's third excellent contribution to the contemporary scholarship of East Asian intellectual history. He aims at a thorough understanding of Zhu Xi's reconstruction of the Confucian tradition and an effective demonstration of how Zhu's readings of the canons were different from those of He Yan, whose commentaries on the Analects were considered to be the standard for reading the text. To achieve these goals Gardner selected some passages of the Analects and arranged them according to five topics: learning, true goodness, rituals, ruling, and the gentleman and the Way, all of which were definitely central issues throughout the whole Confucian tradition and which provide the locus for an effective examination of the differences among interpretations made by different commentators. He Yan's and Zhu Xi's commentaries on each selected passage of the Analects are compared with Gardner's own comments and analyses so that the differences between them can be properly explored. Gardner's writing aims at another goal, which he implicitly but importantly emphasizes, namely to reevaluate the historical and philosophical significance of [End Page 87] the interlinear commentary. Since Confucius mentioned himself as one who simply transmits (genuine tradition), not creates () (Analects 7:1), this has for a long time been a motto in the Confucian intellectual tradition. Many scholars have presented their understandings of the classics through their commentaries rather than through independent works. Gardner evaluates the interlinear commentary as a significant genre for understanding Chinese intellectual history: As a sort of reflection on the words and ideas of a text, interlinear commentary conveys the commentator's understanding of the meaning of the text while it shapes and conditions future readings and understanding of that text by others, both contemporaries and later generations. (p. 3 ) Although it is true that their commentaries, as Gardner notes, are subject to a historical logic (p. 6), this also implies that without reading these commentaries one cannot fully understand the history of the interactions among Confucian scholars and their central issues. Gardner correctly comments on the historical significance of the commentaries: Reading the various commentaries on a canonical text allows us not only to observe that the Confucian interpretive community was, in fact, an ever changing one but also to chart in detail how ideas, beliefs, and values important to that community underwent historical changes at the hands of different interpreters over the centuries. Thus, as a genre that illuminates the Confucian past and that documents especially well the vibrancy and changing nature of that past, commentary is indispensable to the studies of Chinese intellectual history. (p. 6 ) However, just as Confucius was considered not simply a transmitter of his ancestors' ideas, these commentaries should be approached not simply as a review but as the original ideas of Confucian scholars. The latter aspect of the commentaries is one of the reasons why Gardner selected Zhu Xi's commentaries to the Analects, because Zhu's work of commentary on the classics shows not only its historical value but also his original ideas on diverse contemporary topics. As is well known, Zhu Xi was a synthesizer of traditional Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Only after he established his own philosophical system did he start his commentary on the traditional classics, and this work continued until the end of his life. Zhu Xi aimed at the reestablishment of the Confucian tradition, and his works, which transmitted the Confucian orthodoxy through proper commentaries on the classics, were urgently in demand. Gardner indicates the general intellectual climate of Zhu Xi's time, compared with that of He Yan's: Whereas pluralism and relative intellectual openness characterized the atmosphere of the second and third centuries, a tendency toward defining a "correct" body of thought, an intellectual orthodoxy that would "save" the Chinese tradition and protect it from foreign influences, gained momentum in the Northern and Southern Song. (p. 18...

Women in Daoism (review)

Reviewed by: Women in Daoism Robin R. Wang (bio) Catherine Despeux and Livia Kohn. Women in Daoism. Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press, 2003. viii, 296 pp. Paperback $25.00, ISBN 1-931483-01-9. The Daodejing observes: "Everything embodies yin and embraces yang; through the blending of these qi, they attain harmony" (chapter 42). How, one may ask, does this yin-yang interplay actually take place in the universe and in human life? What is the role and function of the yin force? How does yin play out in many aspects of human life? Women in Daoism by Catherine Despeux and Livia Kohn, perhaps for the first time, takes its readers on a journey to discover the dynamic world of yin supremacy, particularly as yin is manifested in the multifaceted roles, functions, and realities of women's lives. Their impressive effort succeeds in transforming what would otherwise be a merely conceptual investigation into a rich narrative disclosing the vivid world of women in Daoism that allows readers to envision what it would be like to seek genuine harmony with the universe. The book is divided into three parts and ten chapters. Each of these is subdivided into topics ranging from "The Mother of the Dao" to "Women's Inner Alchemy." The first part, on "Goddesses," goes beyond identifying these divine objects of religious devotion and offers an appreciation of the Daoist worldview [End Page 69] and the role of women within it. The second part, on "Immortals and Ordinands," surveys the actual records of women's lives throughout Chinese history, the communities in which they have sought spiritual perfection, and whatever teachings that they impart to other women who might take up the path to immortality. The third part, on "Women's Transformation," is a detailed description and analysis of actual Daoist practices, culminating in the inner alchemy by which immortality, flowing from a life progressively liberated from the conventions and restraints of the patriarchal family, can actually be achieved. This book is not simply an attempt at Chinese intellectual history but an exceptional invitation to contemporary women to discover what might be the most valuable quality in their own lives and to cultivate it accordingly. The complexity of Chinese women's identities, roles, and actual lived experience has become an increasingly central topic for investigation. Much work has been done on the Confucian tradition, focusing on the relationship between Confucianism and women. But little attention has been directed toward the Daoist tradition. This book offers a significant resource for moving in that direction. The authors insightfully point out that "Daoism offers a social alternative for women in that it opens paths to pursue their own goals as independent agents, be it the practice of self-cultivation, service as mediums, nuns, or priests, or [the] attainment of immortality" (p. 5). These options have provided women with a reliable path toward spiritual wisdom and emancipation. Five basic images of the roles of women have emerged from the authors' analysis of the history of Daoism: (1) the female as mother, the life-giver and nurturing power of the universe; (2) women as representative of the cosmic force of yin , which fully complements the male yang; (3) women as authoritative teachers in the esoteric movements of religious Daoism; (4) women as possessors of empowering supernatural techniques who have the wisdom to use them properly; and (5) the female body as the seat of the essential ingredients and processes of spiritual transformation (p. 5). While these roles have materialized at different stages of history, a full grasp of the magnitude of the presence of women in Daoism requires a critical evaluation of each cumulative impact. At the risk of simplifying the rich lessons to be gathered from this book, let me highlight just three important themes from its abundant contents. First, there is the construction of an ontological basis for the female identity. The authors offer a convincing case that women, as representatives of cosmic yin, embody a distinctive set of forces and components in the universe. This awareness allocates a paradigm shift in the discernment of the roles of woman. In the mainstream of Confucian culture throughout history, women's identity and self...

Europe and the People without Historiography; or, Reflections on a Self-Inflicted Wound

36Historically Speaking · March 2004 commonplaces about early China tell us, the "Confucians" ofthe pre-imperial era (thatis, before the beginning ofthe Han dynasty in 206 B.CE.) exerted negligible influence over theprinces oftheir day, whose pleasures ranto grandhunts, harems, spectacularbronze arrays of bells, enormous palaces and gardens, and military campaigns involving hundreds of thousands ofmen. Such power as the scholars and lovers oftradition enjoyed seemingly derived from their roles as ritual advisors for certain limited occasions, preservers oftraditions of knowledge about old practices and myths, and perhaps as transmitters and interpreters ofold texts. Their advice on statecraft did not necessarily carry much weight. Yet it would seem that in these impotent centuries theywere also developingthe accounts ofthe Spring and Autumn history thatwould, with the earlyimperial elevation ofConfucius and the body oftexts and thought associatedwith him, turn the pastinto a series oftestcases for the effectiveness ofritual diligence. It is difficult to predict where a serious engagementwith literaryand rhetorical analysisinthe studyofearlyChinese textswilllead. Atpresent, the attentionofscholarsinmyfield is focused on die numerous early texts that archaeological digs have recently brought to light, and the first response ofmanyhas been to attempt to fit these new finds into existing models of early Chinese intellectual history. To be sure, efforts to date these texts and to identifytheirlikelyauthors are indispensable. But one worries that with archaeologically recovered texts, as with the texts handed down tousinlongmanuscripttransmissions, a devotion to old models will obscure the classification -breakingcommonalities and truth-makingprocedures thatliteraryanalysis can bring to lightin the case ofhistoriography. Abetter procedure, in my view, would start from the recognition thatthe earlyChinese, as speakers and writers, knew full well that such matters as verbal beauty and generic excellence were notsuperfluousornaments, butthereal stuffof powerful representation, the artfulness that could carry the day. Ifit is a shame to lose die mirage ofhistorical accuracy that early Chinese historiographyhas seemed to project, the compensation is ample: in place ofslavish documentarians , we getstrategists, savvyrhetoricians , and bold thinkers—not the Chinese Other, any longer, but the Chinese sembhble. DavidSchaberg isassociateprofessor in the Department ofEastAsian Languagesand Cultures at UCLA. His A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography (Harvard University Press, 2002) won theAssociationforAsian Studiesi 2003 Levenson Prize. 1 These are only the two most influential historiographical texts to survive from the 1st millennium B.C.E. Others that deserve mention here include the Book ofDocuments (Shangsbu), which includes certain speeches thatmaydate to the 11th century, and the Bamboo Annals (Zhushujinian), which in manyrespects resembles the SpringsandAutumns. 2 Thestandard Chinese textoftheZuozhuanis Yang Bojun, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zbu (An Annotation ofthe Springs andAutumns and Zuo Tradition), 4 vols. (Rev. ed., Zhonghua shuju, 1990); see 677-78. The translation is myown. The onlycomplete English translation ofthe Zuozhuanis thatofJames Legge, The Ch'un Ts'ew with the Tso Chuen, first published in 1872 as part ofLegge's multi-volume The Chinese Classics. A monumental achievement in its own time, it is now dated. A new version, by Stephen Durrant, LiWaiyee, and myself, is nearingcompletion and will appear within two or three years. 3 Yang, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu, 857-58. 4 The poem cited here and below is "Tu ju" or "Rabbit Snares," the seventh ofthe 305 included in the present text ofthe Odes. Europe and the People without Historiography; or, Reflections on a Self-Inflicted Wound Sanjay Subrahmanyam In this essay I want to call into question four widely held assumptions in that illdefined field of postcolonial studies. I certainly share some preoccupations and even assumptions with those with whom I wish to debate. Like them, I am concerned with the tenacious hold that a linear vision ofWestern history from ancient Greece to the United States ofClinton and Bush (with obligatory pit stops at Rome, the Carolingians , the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution) has on school and college curricula. I abhor the insidious assumption that to know Europe is effectively to know the world. Also, I am concerned that a recentwave ofimperial nostalgia , together with a market-friendly millenarianism, has given new life to the myth that the European colonial empires of the 19di and 20th centuries were really quite benign structures. We are now told insistentlythatthe British Empire noblybrought modernity to the heathens, and that we should all...

The uses of “modernity” in contemporary Chinese intellectual history

The complex question of what it is to be modern has had an intimate connection with China's history at least since the defeats at the hands of Western powers in the Opium Wars of the 19th century. ...

Reinventing Confucianism: The New Confucian Movement (review)

Reviewed by: Reinventing Confucianism: The New Confucian Movement John Berthrong (bio) Umberto Bresciani . Reinventing Confucianism: The New Confucian Movement. Taipei: Taipei Ricci Institute for Chinese Studies, 2001. ix + 652 pp. Hardcover $35.00, ISBN 957-9390-07-x. In the midst of the turmoil of the 1960s in China the historian Joseph Levenson wrote, in Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, the third volume of his exhaustive trilogy Confucian China and Its Modern Faith: A Trilogy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968): "When Confucianism finally passed into history, it was because history passed out of Confucianism. Intrinsic classical learning, the exercise of divining from canonical historical records how men in general should make history for all time, lapsed" (p. 100). In his sincere mourning for the passing of the Confucian Way Levenson was premature in judging that Confucianism had passed forever into the museum of cultural history because Dr. Umberto Bresciani, writing about the reinvention of Confucianism, reports that something quite different was happening to Confucianism during the twentieth century. [End Page 93] On January 1, 1958, Zhang Junmai, Tang Junyi, Mou Zongsan, and Xu Fuguan jointly published A Manifesto on Chinese Culture to the World, announcing that Chinese culture, including Confucianism, was not dead and that a reformed Confucian contribution to world civilization was not only possible but was to be applauded. Although some critical scholars doubt that we can use the publication of the manifesto to mark so precisely the beginning of the revival of Confucianism, it has become a commonplace to mention this important document as denoting an important founding moment in the life of the New Confucian movement. What Bresciani has done, and done superbly, for the first time in English, is to provide a comprehensive historical narrative of what he calls the reinvention of Confucianism in the twentieth century via the founding of the New Confucian movement. As I will discuss below, his scholarship is as impressive as it is judicious. Previously, the scholarly community lacked a coherent historical and philosophic account in any Western language of the rise of the revived Confucian discourse now known as Contemporary New Confucianism (although there are two other parallel studies in English that also contain a great deal of information about New Confucianism: Cheng Chung-ying and Nicholas Bunnin, eds., Contemporary Chinese Philosophy [Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2002], and John Makeham, ed., New Confucianism: A Critical Study [New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003]). Bresciani's work is unique in its scholarly and historical range. As Bresciani notes, there is a growing controversy about what to call the new movement. The debates over naming it are reminiscent of the great arguments that characterized the discussion of the philosophic typologies in Chinese intellectual history beginning with the works of Zhuangzi, Xunzi, and Sima Qian. While it might seem a harmless discussion of how to describe a movement by showing what is new in it and what links it to previous manifestations of Confucian history, any rhetorician knows that setting the range of permissible description or the giving of names and titles is important to any debate. We all remember that when Master Kong was asked what he would do if he were given political power, he responded that he would first rectify names. We should pause for a moment and consider why it has taken so long for an informed and critical scholar like Bresciani to write a narrative account of the rise of the New Confucian movement and the fact that Confucianism is showing signs of a significant revival in the new millennium. The logic concerning the "necessary" decline of Confucianism from the nineteenth century is this: if Confucianism was the preeminent cultural tradition of China that guided the ship of state over the last two thousand years, then China needed a new captain to pilot China because of the obvious failures of the Confucian state to defend China from the remorseless attacks of the modern West. The shop of Confucianism needed to be [End Page 94] closed and boarded over before Chinese intellectuals could set about the business of restoring China to its place of dignity, wealth, and power among the nations of the world. I remember a prescient...

An Intellectual History of Modern China (review)

Reviewed by: An Intellectual History of Modern China Mary G. Mazur (bio) Merle Goldman and Leo Ou-fan Lee, editors. An Intellectual History of Modern China. Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh (Australia), Madrid, and Cape Town: Cambridge University Press, 2002. vii, 607 pp. Hardcover $90.00, ISBN 0-521-80120-6. Paperback $30.00, ISBN 0-521-79710-1. The imposing title of this newly published collection of essays holds great promise—promise that leads the reader to expect an overview and penetrating analysis of the breadth of the fomenting intellectual discourse in modern China, China's most seminal and divisive period in many centuries—some would say ever. Since no comprehensive study has been undertaken to date on the intellectual history of China's modern era, such a work would make a great contribution. What does the reader find? A collection of nine essays on intellectual developments in modern China, seven taken from four volumes of the Cambridge History of China (hereafter CHOC) published from 1983 to 1991, with the addition of two new essays including the book's brief introduction. The seven republished essays are by five eminent establishment authors named on the front of the paperback: Merle Goldman, Leo Ou-fan Lee, Charlotte Furth, Benjamin I. Schwartz, and Stuart Schram, all major contributors to the CHOC on various aspects of intellectual history. This newly published book opens with a brief introduction, by editors Merle Goldman and Leo Ou-fan Lee. Another new piece, by Merle Goldman, closes the book, discussing "A New Relationship between the Intellectuals and the State in the Post-Mao Period" in the 1980s and early 1990s. The majority of the essays were based on research done some thirty years ago—a long time in a rapidly developing field—by people working with John King Fairbank at Harvard. It is all solid, influential work, but the stand-alone essays collected in this book, not integrated as a comprehensive analysis, are now, in 2003, of interest as historical pieces in themselves, representing the historiographical thinking of Euro American academic scholarship at a time when that scholarship focused its lens on the political aspect of events. The book's bibliography underscores the lack of utilization of recently available sources and secondary material. Editors Goldman and Lee have selected from among the essays dealing with intellectual history in the four CHOC volumes on modern China seven for republication in this book. In the paperback edition Cambridge University Press has made them available to readers at a reasonable purchase price, an admirable goal as they are important essays to which both area-specialist and nonspecialist readers will want to refer. However, the editors have chosen to present the volume as An Intellectual History of Modern China—not as the collection of selected essays on modern Chinese intellectual history that it is. The reader is left to deduce from the contents what this book's view of intellectual activity in the "modern" era is [End Page 165] and what the editors consider to be the geographical and time boundaries of modern China. The table of contents begins with the new Introduction by Merle Goldman and Leo Ou-fan Lee. Then it proceeds with: "Intellectual Change: From the Reform Movement to the May Fourth Movement, 1895-1920," by Charlotte Furth (from CHOC, vol. 12); "Themes in Intellectual History: May Fourth and After," by Benjamin Schwartz (vol. 12); "Literary Trends: The Quest for Modernity, 1895-1927," by Leo Ou-fan Lee (vol. 13); "Literary Trends: the Road to Revolution, 1927-1949," by Leo Ou-fan Lee (vol. 13); "Mao Tse-tung's Thought to 1949," by Stuart Schram (vol. 13); "The Party and the Intellectuals: Phase Two," by Merle Goldman (vol. 14); and "Mao Tse-tung's Thought from 1949-1976," by Stuart Schram (vol. 15). The final (and new) essay is "A New Relationship between the Intellectuals and the State in the Post-Mao Period," by Merle Goldman. Since all of the previously published chapters were reviewed by eminent reviewers after publication in their CHOC volumes, we will look separately only at the last essay and comment briefly on the Introduction. The final piece, by Merle Goldman, "A New Relationship between...

The Epochal Concept of "Early Modernity" and the Intellectual History of Late Imperial China

In response to the recent historiographical interests in testing the cross-cultural tenability of the epochal concept of "early modernity," this essay ponders the usefulness of the notion in Chinese intellectual history, focusing on the historical dynamics of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century China. It does so by exploring three interrelated issues derived from the intellectual experiences of "early modern" Europe: the nature of knowledge, the sense of the past, and the claim of the ultimate grounds for ethico-moral values. The article concludes that late imperial Chinese thought displayed a historical trajectory quite different from that of Europe. It is thus problematic to dislodge the notion of early modernity from its European moorings and demonstrate its Chinese variety.

Zhong Hui's Laozi Commentary and the Debate on Capacity and Nature in Third-Century China

Zhong Hui (a.d. 225–264) was a major, albeit neglected figure in third- century Chinese intellectual history. Author of a Laozi commentary and a treatise on the relationship between “capacity” (cat) and “nature” (xing), Zhong Hui played a significant role in the development of xuanxue (Learning of the Mysterious Dao), which came into prominence during the early Wei dynasty and dominated the Chinese intellectual scene well into the sixth century. This essay presents a reconstructed version of Zhong Hui's Laozi commentary and compares Zhong's approach with Wang Bi's. Zhong Hui's work on “capacity and nature” (caixing) captures a major debate in early xuanxue philosophy and will be scrutinized also in this discussion.

Staatsdenken in China der Republikzeit (1912-1949): Die Instrumentalisierung philosophischer Ideen bei chinesischen Intellektuellen (review)

Reviewed by: Staatsdenken in China der Republikzeit (1912-1949): Die Instrumentalisierung philosophischer Ideen bei chinesischen Intellektuellen (Statehood reflections in Republican China [1912-1949]: The implementation of philosophical ideas by Chinese intellectuals) Irene Eber (bio) Thomas Fröhlich . Staatsdenken in China der Republikzeit (1912-1949): Die Instrumentalisierung philosophischer Ideen bei chinesischen Intellektuellen (Statehood reflections in Republican China [1912-1949]: The implementation of philosophical ideas by Chinese intellectuals). Campus Forschung, vol. 820. Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag, 2000. 410 pp. Paperback, ISBN 3-593-36635-5. Chinese intellectuals and Chinese intellectual history of the Republican period are discussed in a number of excellent studies. We need only consider those by Joseph R. Levenson, Chow Tse-tsung, Jerome B. Grieder, Charlotte Furth, Chang Hao, or Philip C. Huang, to name but a few authors.1 Yet many aspects of the subject still remain obscure from those turbulent years of the 1920s and 1930s, and the passage of time has led to new questions. Thomas Fröhlich explains in his introduction that he does not present new materials in the present work. He proposes rather to illuminate the relationship between the academic and journalistic efforts of China's intellectuals and their preoccupation with China's national plight. And this, indeed, is the important contribution of the present volume: new perspectives are brought to bear on widely debated issues of that era, and new ways to understand them are suggested. The author's aim in this study is to subject to close scrutiny the political ideas of four major intellectuals: Ding Wenjiang (1887-1936), Zhang Junmai (Carsun Chang, 1887-1969), Hu Shi (1891-1962), and Chen Duxiu (1879-1942). The backgrounds and views of the four, as we have come to know them from previous studies, are very different. But Fröhlich finds, and rightly so, that where ideas of statehood and the functions of the state are concerned, their views often converged, and he proposes that the common goal of the four men was to establish the intellectual foundations of China's future political order. Their practical political activities and their efforts toward a cultural renewal were explicitly joined [End Page 102] to this goal. Of major significance to them was to identify a central intellectual sphere of concern (geistiges Zentralgebiet) as the source from which China's political and cultural reconstruction would be determined. One of Fröhlich's major premises is precisely this: a new and changed central sphere characterizes a given historical period and is the point of departure for fashioning the entire cultural, social, or economic order of the state. In addition, Ding, Zhang, Hu, and Chen proposed, according to Fröhlich, an expertocracy (Expertokratie) as the guardians of this central sphere. By expertocracy the author refers not to a professional technocracy but to an intellectual elite with expertise in various fields of endeavor, including the sciences and humanities. It is they who will actively promote the common good of the entire society instead of pursuing partisan and self-serving politics. Because this elite is convinced that China as a unified and modern state can be constructed on the basis of a central intellectual sphere, they need not engage in contradictory power politics, and there is no conflict of interests among them. Thus, Fröhlich argues that the goal held in common by the four men was the establishment of a nonpolitical central sphere (Entpolitisiert), and from it the intellectual elite would draw its ideas for their activities on behalf of the state. By means of these major themes, the author considers the 1923 science and metaphysics (kexue yu renshengguan) controversy the pivotal point in the evolution of the ideas of Ding, Zhang, Hu, and Chen, although the germination of their views goes back to the 1910s. The controversy and the flood of articles it gave rise to has been discussed by all authors on Chinese intellectual history and is well known. Fröhlich's sophisticated analysis, however, brings to light new perspectives as well as a new focus for understanding the importance of their political ideas in relation to the controversy. The clarion call for the start of this controversy was Zhang Junmai's February 1923 lecture at...

Mencius’ hermeneutics of classics

The Eastern Zhou (東周 722-222 B.C.) period was a golden age in Chinese intellectual history, one in which the great masters emerged one after another and hundreds of schools competed with each other. Among them, the Confucians had the deepest historical consciousness and were most respectful of traditional culture. Confucius (551-479 B.C.) himself talked about Yao堯 and Shun舜, wrote about King Wen文 and King Wu武, and regarded the absence of Duke Zhou周公 in his dream as a signal of his getting old; Mencius (371-289 B.C.?), it was reported, “cannot avoid mentioning Yao and Shun whenever he talked” (Mencius: 3A5) and, as pointed out by Zhao Qi 趙岐 (?-A.D. 210) of the East Han Dynasty 東漢 (A.D.25220), was “thorough with the five classics, and particularly good at the Book of Odes《詩》and the Book of History《書》” (Zhao: 1a). In the whole book of Mencius, there are thirty-three uses of the Book of Odes, twenty-two of which are of Da Ya《大雅》, and fourteen uses of the Book of History. Particularly noticeable is that, more often than not, Mencius’ uses of these two classics were made in some particular context of his own discourses, which shows to some extent how Confucian thinkers were using classics. In addition to using classics to argue for his own points, Mencius also developed two methods of interpreting classics, which have been very influential in the Confucian hermeneutics of classics. This article aims to present the two contexts within which Mencius used classics, and to analyze the implications of Mencius’ hermeneutics of classics.

The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800, and: The Vision of China in the English Literature of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (review)

Reviewed by: The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800, and: The Vision of China in the English Literature of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries John A. Tucker (bio) David E. Mungello . The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999. xvii, 113 pp. Paperback $12.95, ISBN 0-8476-9440-2. Hardcover $35.95, ISBN 0-8476-9439-9. Adrian Hsia . The Vision of China in the English Literature of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1998. xi, 404 pp. Paperback $32.00, ISBN 962-201-608-1. Historians of European culture, those of Chinese intellectual history, and all scholars who seek to establish for the study of world history interpretive foundations that make it more than an uneasy, often disjointed, patchwork of European and non-European themes will welcome the publication of these two volumes dealing with one of the most crucial and revealing periods of cross-cultural interpretation in early-modern times. The first, David E. Mungello's The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800, takes the broader, more complete, and surely more balanced perspective, surveying developments from the beginning of the sixteenth century through the beginning of the nineteenth, focusing not only on the Chinese reception and ultimate rejection of Western culture but equally on the same themes in the West's attempts to come to terms with China. Despite its considerable breadth, Mungello's book is by far the briefer, compressing its encyclopedic coverage into just over one hundred pages of well-illustrated text (twenty nicely reproduced black-and-white pictures and two useful maps).1 The brevity of Mungello's book might suggest that it was meant only for [End Page 521] freshman-level surveys of world history or Chinese and/or Western history; however, this book, with its wealth of information and insight, can well serve upper- level students embarking on a more in-depth study of the problem of Sino Western cultural interaction and interpretation, and general readers who seek to enhance their understanding of China and the profound misunderstandings that have so frequently characterized Sino-Western encounters in the past. Although Mungello has produced numerous scholarly volumes such as Leibniz and Confucianism: The Search for Accord (University of Hawai'i Press, 1977 ), Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology (Franz Steiner, 1985), The Forgotten Christians of Hangzhou (University of Hawai'i Press, 1994 ), and The Rites Controversy: Its History and Meaning (Steyler, 1994), the book under review here, The Great Encounter, is more of a textbook than a scholarly monograph. As Mungello acknowledges, for example, "the scholarly apparatus" has been kept to a minimum, and "there are no footnotes." Nevertheless, The Great Encounter is clearly the product of considerable erudition as well as interpretive sensitivity. The latter aspect must be emphasized since earlier studies of Sino Western relations have frequently been of the "Western impact, Chinese reaction" variety. As Mungello's book makes clear, there is far more to the story than this. The Great Encounter explores four main themes: (1) the Chinese acceptance of Western culture and Christianity, (2) the Chinese rejection of the same, (3) the Western acceptance of Chinese culture, and (4) the Western rejection of it. In developing the first theme, Mungello avoids easy characterizations of the Chinese as an insular people, and instead takes seriously those Chinese, mostly Neo-Confucian literati, who in the first century and a half of contact with Christian missionaries and Western culture were influenced by the latter two. Mungello's multifaceted account of the Chinese rejection of Western culture is impressive both at the general level and in terms of its concrete detail. Yet most striking is Mungello's reminder that "the Chinese rejection of Christianity was neither total nor permanent." In this connection he observes that the recent resurgence of Christianity within China suggests that "seeds sown by Christian missionaries in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries simply took several centuries to harvest" (p. 46). Mungello adds, rightly, that "such a long-term perspective is particularly appropriate" in relation to a culture as ancient as that of the Chinese (p. 46). Balancing...

RETHINKING THE SELF'S RELATION TO THE WORLD IN THE MID-MING: FOUR RESPONSES TO CHENG-ZHU LEARNING

By the early-sixteenth century in China, Neo-Confucian learning found itself in the midst of a major intellectual transformation, undergoing its most lively philosophical effervescence since its formative stage. For those interested in Chinese intellectual history and philosophy, the most important aspect of this transformation was the ascendancy of Wang Yangming (1472–1529). This focus on Wang Yangming is understandable, especially given the widespread impact of Wang learning on later generations of intellectuals. In this sense, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that Wang Yangming serves as a watershed in the intellectual current of this time.

The Mother and Narrative Politics in Modern China

A modernist icon, an object of forbidden desire, a symbol of loss and suffering, and an incorrigible survivor - the mother takes all of these forms in Chinese literature from the 1920s and 1930s. In an innovative analysis, Sally Taylor Lieberman explores the meanings the maternal figure acquired at a particular place and time and then engages those meanings in a feminist rereading of the master narratives of modern Chinese intellectual and literary history. Drawing on feminist literary criticism and the theories of Julia Kristeva, Melanie Klein, and Sigmund Freud, Lieberman breaks traditional analytical boundaries as she explores the place of the mother in the ideological struggles through which the modern Chinese canon attained its present shape.

Mysticism and Kingship in China: The Heart of Chinese Wisdom (review)

FEATURES Julia Ching. Mysticism and Kingship in China: The Heart ofChinese Wisdom . New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. xxi, 302 pp. Hardcover $64.95, ISBN 0-521-46293-2. Paperback $22.95, 1SBN 0-521-46828-0. Mysticism and Kingship in China approaches Chinese intellectual history from the central thesis that mysticism—the ecstatic communion between man and the cosmos —lies at the center of Chinese wisdom. The sage-king paradigm is founded on the mystical idea ofthe oneness ofheaven and humanity. The breadth of the work—from the late fifth and early fourth millennia b.c.e. to the twentieth century —is understandably at some expense ofdepth, but excellent references are given for readers who wish to pursue any issue further. Ching discusses the shamanic function ofancient Chinese rulers, the intertwining of the sacred and the secular, by surveying the archaeological information —on divination, petitions to spirits, sacrifices, and the functions and activities ofshamans—in the light ofancient texts and cross-cultural clues found in the religious practices ofother ancient cultures. As mediator between heaven and earth, the king came to represent cosmic humanity in Chinese thinking, with the power to influence, and therefore the responsibility for, the fortunes ofall under his rule. Even after shamanism declined, the sacral character ofkingship survives in myths ofdivine descent and rituals with religious origin or connotations. Such rituals, as shown in Ching's study ofenthronement rituals in Japan and China, has legitimizing power. Ching examines the myths ofancient sage-kings and asks ifthey were historical figures or products ofthe imagination. Her view is that sage-kings never really existed, but thinkers who wanted to influence the actions ofkings promoted these myths to make their point that the wise should govern, if not as rulers, then at least as their advisors. Chinese philosophy, through the "mandate ofheaven" theory, has contributed to the "aura ofsacrality" surrounding the political institution ofkingship. Developed by the Zhou kings to legitimize their overthrow oftheir Shang overlords, it is a double-edged sword: linked with ethical criteria for kingship, it could discredit as well as legitimize. The sage-king paradigm was appropriated by philosophy and transformed.© 1998 by University Ching assesses Confucius' traditionalist and reformisttendencies, and offers a ofHawai'iPresssynopsis ofthe main tenets inhis teachings on rituals/propriety (H¡it) and humaneness [ren £l). While Confucius never called himself a sage, he has been regarded as such by generations ofChinese. Ching suggests that Confucius could 3o8 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 2, Fall 1998 also be considered a prophet, under an expanded definition of "prophet." An examination of the social background of Confucius and his followers reveals a group of "scholar-aristocrats," even though Confucius did not make class distinctions in accepting students. Despite the continuing elitism of education in China, in the hands of Mencius, Confucius' selective and critical transmission of ancient wisdom became revolutionized: sagehood is no longer limited to rulers or high ministers, and everyone is equal in their access to this exalted state. While recognizing the potential of Confucianism for individual liberation, Ching also takes a critical stance toward its limitations in her discussion of the subordination of women. Even as philosophy appropriated the sage-king paradigm, the political establishment appropriated Confucianism. As a state orthodoxy, Confucianism, drained of its humanistic content, became diminished into an ideology serving the absolute monarchy. The philosophical appropriation of the sage-king paradigm was strengthened with the development of the theory of "Oneness of Heaven and humanity" [tianren heyi ??1?G—). Ching compares Mencius' mystical consciousness— "The myriad things are all within me"—and Xunzi's rationalistic view ofheaven as physical nature, irrelevant to the failure or success ofhuman undertaking. Dong Zhongshu lÈfàÊT, usually credited with establishing Confucianism as the state orthodoxy during the Han dynasty, is also credited with turning the tradition away from Xunzi's "completely rationalistic way," even though it was Xunzi who was considered the carrier of Confucius' mantle for over a millennium after the deaths of Mencius and Xunzi. Han Confucians recognized the schism between wisdom and power when they made Confucius the uncrowned king, but they continued to expect sagely conduct from kings. In the absence of sage-kings, Confucians...

Confucian Commentary and Chinese Intellectual History

As early as the han dynasty, exegetes of the texts in the Confucian canon were preparing written commentary on them, and by the dynasty's end they were interspersing their glosses in the body of these texts as interlinear, running commentary. From this time on, few Chinese would have read any classic from the canon without commentarial companion. And, as Confucianism came to be identified over the course of the imperial period with the Chinese cultural traditionpar excellence, the writing of interlinear commentary on the canon of texts became a standard, even dominant, mode of scholarly and philosophical discourse for Chinese literati. It was in commentary that these men would offer their reflections on the meaning of Confucian doctrine as it had evolved through the centuries and attempt to construct a philosophical or moral vision meaningful in a world far removed from that of the classical age.

Philosophy, Philology, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century China: Li Fu and the Lu-Wang School under the Ch'ing (review)

446 China Review International: Vol. 4, No. 2, Fall 1997© 1997 by University ofHawai'i Press Chin-shing Huang. Philosophy, Philology, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century China: Li Fu and the Lu-Wang School under the Ch'ing. Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature, and Institutions Series, vol. 20. Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1995. xviii, 204 pp. Hardcover, isbn 0-521-48225-9. Chin-shing Huang is to be commended for his delivery to the scholarly world of the first book-length study of Li Fu, a neglected and important early Ch'ing philosopher of the Neo-Confucian School ofthe Mind. Although founded by Lu Chiuy üan (or Lu Hsiang-shan) as early as the twelfth century, not until the emergence ofWang Shou-jen (1472-1529), generally known as Wang Yang-ming, did this school reach its full maturity. Hence it has commonly been referred to as the LuWang school. Its upsurge resulted from the intellectual ferment of the late Ming dynasty (1368-1644), an age that witnessed die flourishing of a variety ofreligious and philosophical currents. Characterized by its individualistic approach and intuitive methodology, it was a school that encouraged free speculation, attracted more followers, and, therefore, weakened its rival, the Ch'eng-Chu orthodoxy. The Ch'ing conquest of China in 1644 ushered in a new era in Chinese intellectual history. For the sake ofpolitical stability, the early Ch'ing monarchs patronized the Ch'eng-Chu school. At the same time, a number of influential Chinese thinkers, notably Ku Yen-wu (1613-1682) and Wang Fu-chih (1619-1692), blamed the spread of the Lu-Wang school as one reason for the fall ofthe Ming. Most early Ch'ing scholars were now captivated by the Ch'eng-Chu orthodoxy, while the once-influential Lu-Wang school was relegated to the fringes of the intellectual mainstream. But Li Fu remained at large, like a lone ranger gallantly defending the doctrines ofits masters, Lu Chiu-yiian and Wang Shou-jen. This book, consisting of an introduction, seven chapters, and a conclusion, is well thought-out. As the foundation of the study, die first three chapters attempt to acquaint the readers with the history and issues of the Ch'eng-Chu and LuWang schools. For instance, chapter 1 covers the similarities and differences between die philosophical views of Lu Chiu-yiian and Chu Hsi (1130-1200), the chief founder of the Ch'eng-Chu school. In chapter 2, Huang discusses the intellectual development ofthe Ming dynasty and the rise ofWang Shou-jen as a great philosopher. Chapter 3 explores the Confucian concept of the tradition of the Way (tao-t'ung), its transmission, and its interaction with the tradition of governance (chih-t'ung). Confucian scholars considered themselves bearers and transmitters of the Way; the monarchs held the tradition ofgovernance. The next three chapters constitute die centerpiece ofthe work. They focus on Li Fu's early life, official career, and philosophical argumentation. Born to a poor Reviews 447 family, Li was gifted with literary talent and a prodigious memory. Poverty hardened his determination to improve his knowledge and achieve academic excellence . His official career was full oftrouble, perhaps because ofhis straightforward personality; he suffered demotion, imprisonment, and even the threat of execution. For all these misfortunes, he distinguished himself as a writer, a scholar, and, most importantly, a philosopher. As a philosopher, Li Fu drew on various sources, including the doctrines of Lu Chiu-yiian and Wang Shou-jen, certain folk beliefs, and possibly the tenets of the pragmatic school ofYen Yuan (1635-1704) and Li Kung (1659-1733). To fight his rivals from the Ch'eng-Chu school and other intellectual enemies, he adopted a philological approach to the textual analysis of Confucian sources, and using both philosophical and philological arguments he was able to present a powerful argument in defense of the Lu-Wang school. Chapter 7 centers on the relations between the traditions of die Way and of governance. The author maintains that prior to the K'ang-hsi period (1662-1722), the scholars ofboth the Ch'eng-Chu and Lu-Wang schools held authority over the tradition ofthe Way, as a means to...

Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought: Chapters Three, Four and Five of the Huainanzi (review)

Reviews 181 John S. Major. Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought: Chapters Three, Four and Five ofthe Huainanzi. Appendix by Christopher Cullen. Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 1993. xvi, 388 pp. Hardcover $74.50. Paperback $24.95. With the publication of John Major's Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought: Chapters Three, Four and Five ofthe Huainanzi and the anticipated publication of his Essays on theHuainanzi and Other Topics in Early Chinese Intellectual History,1 the scholarly world will finally have ready access to arguably the most important single corpus of seminal texts on the subject of early Chinese cosmology. The greatest value ofthese two books lies in John Major's ability to explain the intricacies of early Chinese cosmology. As the achievement of twenty years of scholarly effort, these works will become welcome sourcebooks for students of early Chinese astronomy, astrology, cosmogony, cosmography, and mythology. What began as a doctoral dissertation on chapter 4 of the Huainanzi at Harvard in 1973 has grown into an annotated translation ofthree chapters—chapter 3, "Tianwenxun " (Treatise on the patterns of Heaven); chapter 4, "Dixingxun" (Treatise on topography); and chapter 5, "Shizexun" (Treatise on the seasonal rules). From a paper on the origins of Chinese science delivered in Tokyo in 1974, diis work has grown into a book ofthirteen essays on the cosmology of the Huainanzi and related subjects. For two productive decades, John Major has played a significant role in the movement to resurrect an obscure text and place it in its rightful position as a seminal text of early Chinese thought. The three chapters translated from the Huainanzi are, according to Major, "a contemporary summary of the cosmological theories of the Huang-Lao School in the early Han" (p. 8). Because ofthe extreme difficulty of these chapters, yet also perhaps because of a certain indifference on the part of scholars, this work of Liu An and his entourage has never received the attention that should have been given to a work that Harold Rodi has called "the principal representative of Huang-Lao philosophy in the Han."2 With the recent resurgence of interest in Huang-Lao thought, engendered mainly by the discovery at Mawangdui ofwhat is purported to be the lost Huangdi sijing (Four scriptures ofthe Yellow Emperor ), Major's work will not only add an important chapter to such studies, but will also help considerably in defining die direction offuture work in this area. One of the most important (and probably most controversial) contributions y niversity ^J0J1n Major's works to me nei¿ 0feariy Chinese studies is his conviction diat the cosmology described in chapters 3-5 of the Huainanzi is not merely one element ofHuang-Lao thought, but actually the defining character ofthe "Huang" portion of that thought as it existed in the early Han dynasty. Ofcourse, Major is ofHawai'i Press 182 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 1995 not the first scholar to point out the importance of cosmology in Huang-Lao Daoism. In 1979, Tu Wei-ming distilled four "fully integrated philosophical concepts " from the Mawangdui Huang-Lao texts, die first ofwhich was "a cosmological vision of the Way."3 And a decade ago, Jan Yun-hua noted "die stress on cosmology and its relation to man and his problems" in the Mawangdui HuangLao text, die Shiliujing.* But in his detailed study ofthe Yellow Emperor in Essays on the Huainanzi ("Huang-Lao and Huangdi"), Major notes that "in later studies of Huang-Lao in the West, there has been a tendency to downplay die cosmological aspects of Huangdi." A. C. Graham added to this growing deemphasis when he concluded that "the name of the Yellow Emperor, the inventor of the state and ofwar, may well have been chosen to represent the Legalist side of Huang-Lao."5 R. P. Peerenboom offers essentially the same reasoning.6 Major is adamant in his attempt to reverse this trend. In an estimation ofhis own work he says: In Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought I take a quite different view of these matters. In it I put forth arguments to show that the Huainanzi is a, perhaps the, exemplary Huang-Lao text; that...