Chinese Intellectual Tradition Research Articles

From sanctus to shengren: mediating Christian and Chinese concepts of human excellence in early modern China

ABSTRACT In the 1580s, when the Jesuit missionaries Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607) and Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) established the first Jesuit mission in China, the terms “translatability” and “cultural incommensurability” were yet to enter the European lexicon, but these questions were addressed implicitly through the translation choices employed in the mission field. For the early missionaries, translatability had immense ramifications for their missionary practice. One of the foremost challenges was how to communicate in Chinese the concept of “sanctity,” which was central to Christian soteriology. There was a range of terms in Chinese intellectual and religious traditions that the Jesuits drew upon to translate sanctus such as shengren 聖人 zhenren 真人, and xian 仙, but each of these terms implied a certain commensurability between Christian and indigenous Chinese conceptions of human excellence. This paper will present a microhistory of early Jesuit attempts to translate sanctus in Chinese, and reflect upon the significance of these translation choices for the development of the Jesuits’ missionary strategy.

Ценностные основания стратагемного мышления (на примере минских «Книг мудрости» 1614–1634 гг.)

In the history of human thought, the question of the human wisdom nature, or the possibility to gain it, has never assumed a simple solution. Chinese thinkers and philosophers answered this question in different ways. The secular and practical character of understanding the concept of wisdom in the Chinese intellectual tradition was largely due to the influence of the ethical and political doctrine of Confucianism. From the point of view of Confucian ethics, the idea of using tricks and gimmicks was considered rather dubious. In the history of Chinese thought, there were periods when the intellectual elite had time to realize the beginning of a crisis in society and tried not only to theorize stratagem thinking, but also to find sufficient ethical grounds for applying stratagems in routine practices. The last third of the Ming dynasty reigning, when A Complete Book of Wisdom was written, was just such a period. At the same time, there was a serious value guidelines transformation of the educated class in China, which could also act as one of the factors in developing interest in stratagems and stratagem thinking. The aim of the article is to analyze the transformation of the value system of Chinese intellectuals, who lived in the last third of the Ming dynasty, and identify the value grounds of stratagem thinking described in A Complete Book of Wisdom. The article presents a classification of relevant factors that influenced the transformation of the value system of educated people under the late Ming. It describes and systematizes the data on the attitude of Ming emperors to educated people and Confucian ethical-political doctrine. The struggle not only for real power but also for symbolic power in the area of values and ideals was one of the drivers for the transformation of the value system. In addition, the commercialization of life and mass culture was the main factor in the significant change of Confucian philosophy. The article presents the analysis of educated people feelings and attitudes, which entailed changes in approaches to the process of knowledge and social practices. Thus, under the late Ming dynasty, there was the development of new models of social conflict resolution and value grounds of stratagem thinking.

The Possibility of Returning to Experience: The Essence of Philosophical History in Chinese Philosophy and Its Reflection

The Chinese construction of the science of philosophy takes as its basic form the narrative of the history of philosophy. The introduction into Chinese philosophy of the normative character of philosophy and its problem framework via the narrative of the history of philosophy has to some extent enabled the practice of philosophy to remain separate from the norms and methods of traditional Chinese thought. Philosophical norms and problem frameworks from the West have changed the happenings of the historical world towards the eternal Dao of the classical world into intellectual texts, and have transformed the situationbased expressive strategy that develops the principles of things in the world of concrete experience into concepts and categories. As a consequence of these two positions, the ground of Chinese philosophy, based as it is on the history of philosophy, may not only be separated from the everlasting world of experience of the classics, but may also be divorced from the present experience of the modernization process. If we start from an analysis of the historicity of the Chinese intellectual tradition and its classical character, Chinese philosophy has obtained the possibility of returning to experience by means of parsing jishi yanli, a way of thinking that uses the investigation of things to fathom principles. The pathway of integrating philosophical thinking and experience will enhance and stimulate the contemporary value of the classics. More importantly, regarding the unique methods and strategies of expression in traditional Chinese thought as a general philosophical approach can facilitate the promotion of the construction of a world philosophy oriented toward current experience.

Syncretism in Exegesis: The Integration of Confucian Texts in Chengguan’s Huayan Commentary

Commentarial literature constitutes a cornerstone in the edifice of Chinese Buddhism, providing critical exegesis of Indian Buddhist texts. This paper examines the pivotal role of Chengguan (738–839), the fourth patriarch of the Huayan school, revered for his extensive commentarial work on the Chinese translations of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra. Chengguan not only composed a written commentary but also engaged in discourses with the monastic and lay communities at Wutaishan, prompting the creation of a sub-commentary derived from these oral elucidations. The study posits that the composition of Chengguan’s audiences, comprising Confucian-educated scholars and Buddhist monks, necessitated a pedagogical strategy that integrated Chinese intellectual traditions into the Buddhist narrative to enhance comprehension. This analysis focuses on Chengguan’s citations of the Analects, showcasing how he interweaves Confucian maxims into the fabric of his commentary to illuminate Buddhist doctrines. The research articulates the method he employed to make the Buddhist texts resonate with a Chinese audience.

Chinese Intellectual Traditions as Global Resources

Highlights There has been little real progress in finding feasible approaches to addressing global knowledge asymmetries, especially in the social sciences and humanities. With China's new global role, how Chinese experiences could contribute to global theoretical construction in the human and social sciences becomes the order of the day? As the most valued resources for human, social, and cultural theorization, Chinese thought and experiences also serve as an effective catalytic agent for global intellectual pluralism. The great value of China's intellectual traditions in global theoretical construction fuels Chinese scholarship in the humanities and social sciences to win a reputation on the world stage.

A Corpus Linguistics Approach to the Representation of Western Religious Beliefs in Ten Series of Chinese University English Language Teaching Textbooks.

The early Sino-Western contact was through the way in which religion and language interact to produce language contact. However, research on this contact is relatively limited to date, particularly in the realm of English language materials. In fact, there is a paucity of research on Western religions in English Language Teaching (ELT) textbooks. By applying corpus linguistics as a tool and the Critical Discourse Analysis as the theoretical framework, this manuscript critically investigates the significant semantic domains in ten English language textbook series that are officially approved and are widely used in Chinese universities. The findings suggest that various Western religious beliefs, which are the highly unusual topics in previous Chinese ELT textbooks, are represented in the textbook corpus. The results also show that when presenting the views and attitudes toward Western religious beliefs, these textbooks have adopted an eclectic approach to the material selection. Surprisingly, positive semantic prosody surrounding the concept of religion is evident and no consistent negative authorial stance toward religion is captured. Atheism has been assumed to be in the center of Chinese intellectual traditions and the essence of the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party. Interestingly, the findings from this study provide a new understanding of Chinese foreign language textbooks in the new era, and its addition to the literature on the study of ELT textbooks, as well as its development worldwide.

Empiricisms: Experience and Experiment from Antiquity to the Anthropocene

Empiricisms: Experience and Experiment from Antiquity to the Anthropocene

Rethinking Knowledge through Early English Translations of Zhu Xi’s Study of Li 理

The English translations of Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 (1130–1200) study of li 理 by James Legge (1815–1897), Thomas McClatchie (1812–1885) and Joseph Percy Bruce (1861–1934) are analyzed in this essay. A central figure in Chinese history, Zhu established the li system and contributed to the renewal of Confucianism and Chinese intellectual tradition. English translators of Zhu’s thought over time have used various words to translate li. This essay presents the perspective shared by Arthur Schopenhauer and related discussions by George Steiner and Robert J. C. Young to determine the key role of translation in producing meaning, developing the field of philosophy, and creating knowledge. Using an overview of Zhu’s philosophical framework of li as a background to highlight translation as the agent for transforming this framework, this essay examines how the translations by Legge, McClatchie and Bruce have stimulated readers to rethink knowledge from different angles. Legge, who translated li as “principle”, engaged with Zhu’s related ideas and Christian teachings comparatively to reflect on children’s education as well as the meaning of God and knowledge acquisition, in an attempt to integrate Zhu’s li system and Christianity through his translational exploration. McClatchie, who translated li as “Fate”, indicated that Zhu’s li system vastly differed from Christianity and emphasized the demarcation between Christianity and pagan philosophy. Bruce used rich vocabulary to translate li, and thus created a highly nuanced and meaningful comprehension of religion and philosophy by appreciating the differences in Zhu’s thought. By analyzing the aforementioned translations, this essay will illuminate the under-discussed process of knowledge creation through translation across cultures.

Different Approaches to Chinese Aesthetics

The article introduces Fang Dongmei’s and Xu Fuguan’s ideas about aesthetics and examines their different methodological approaches. Fang Dongmei and Xu Fuguan are both representatives of the second generation of Modern Taiwanese Confucianism. The fundamental goal of this significant movement is to re-evaluate and re-examine the profound contents of Chinese thought in contemporary socio-political conditions through a dialogue with Western philosophy. The representatives of Modern Confucianism of the 20th century hoped that the encounter with the Western intellectual tradition would serve as a platform for modernization of Chinese culture on the one hand, and as a way to achieve the recognition of the West for the profound value of the Chinese intellectual tradition on the other. Fang Dongmei was one of the first representatives of this movement who was trained in Western and Chinese philosophy, and hence built his own philosophical theory on the encounter of both, while Xu Fuguan was one of the first who engaged in a dialogue with the West in the field of Chinese aesthetics. The present article illuminates the profound differences in their basic methods: while Fang Dongmei’s elaboration upon Chinese art and aesthetics is based on philosophical and poetic approaches, Xu Fuguan’s comprehension is grounded on philological, historical and cultural analyses. The author argues that such mutual differences between their ideas show their reciprocal complementarity, which in turn provides a more profound and clear understanding of the specific spirit of Chinese art.

Philosophy in Taiwan: The Continuation of Tradition and the Creation of New Theoretical Paradigms

Taiwanese philosophers are playing a rather prominent role in the context of preserving the Chinese ideational tradition, even though their significance in this context is still widely unknown. The present article is thus focused upon the critical introduction of their work, and its positioning into the context of the political, economic and intellectual conditions of the second half of the 20th century. The role of the Taiwanese philosophy was especially important precisely in the period which begun in 1949 and lasted until the end of the century. In these five decades, the philosophical production on the mainland was mostly dominated by censorship, and the prevailing regulations of the Communist Party’s policies mainly demanded that researchers working in philosophy stayed in the field of the sinization of Marxism, whereby investigating the Chinese intellectual tradition was not so much in favour. The article clearly exposes the reasons for and significance of the preservation of continued research into Chinese ideational history in Taiwan, and points out that without this extraordinarily constructive role of the Taiwanese philosophers, these studies would have suffered immense damage. The author also shows that the work carried out by the Taiwanese philosophers was not merely important in respect of preserving the continuation of Chinese philosophical research, but also because they have at the same time created numerous innovative methodological and theoretical concepts that have fundamentally enriched the recent history of investigating and developing Chinese philosophy. In this regard, the author exposes and critically analyses some of the central philosophical concepts of Mou Zongsan, who is among the most important representatives of modern Taiwanese philosophy.
 Keywords: Taiwanese philosophy, research in the Chinese intellectual tradition, Chinese philosophy, Confucianism, new concepts, new methodologies

The Mind’s Dynamism in Chinese Catholic Theology: A Comparative Study of Metaphysics and Knowledge in the Thought of Wang Yangming and Joseph Maréchal

ABSTRACT As a particular case study of “world Christianity,” this article seeks to develop a Chinese Catholic epistemological foundation for the Church’s theological quest to know God. It is a comparative study of the thought of Neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yangming (1472–1529) and the Belgian Jesuit Joseph Maréchal. I demonstrate how both thinkers affirm the subjective contribution of the human mind in any act of knowing while still maintaining that any accurate or moral knowledge participates in a higher order of ontological being. The agreements between Wang’s Neo-Confucian and Maréchal’s Transcendental Thomist theories of mind make for a fruitful convergence of the Chinese and Catholic intellectual traditions, from which Chinese theology can contribute to the worldwide Church’s understanding of God.

Stratagem Rationality of Traditional China

For a long time, leading European thinkers have denied systematic, theoretical and rational nature of Chinese traditional thinking, unpretentiously reading it as banal moralizing (“moral philosophy,” at best – “moral metaphysics,” etc.), not supported by any proper philosophical discourse. However, the habitual socioethical label conceals a much deeper problematic of strategic thinking. At its center, there is the question of choosing all sorts of strategies: from everyday life to special technical ones, from personal existential choice to fateful state decisions. The concept of a winning strategy is emblematized by the dramatic plot of a deadly risk (“stepping on a tiger’s tail”) but under certain conditions with guaranteed happy end. The strategy of harmony (he 和), which is miraculous in its effectiveness, is proposed as a exemplary strategy. It allows you to “step on the tiger’s tail” with impunity (lü hu wei履 虎尾). From the point of view of strategic thinking, the criterion of cognitive value of reasoning is its effectiveness (in the context of a particular game), and the most effective is unmistakable prediction, i.e. the ability to predict the outcome of future developments with the help of reasoning. In the ideal case (under certain conditions), prognostic reasoning becomes not just plausible but 100% reliable that is an apodictic true inference. Therefore, the highest cognitive status in the Chinese intellectual tradition is endowed with guaranteed error-free prognostic reasoning. This type of reasoning, where the reliability of foresight is guaranteed by the implementation of a certain winning strategy, can be called the prognostic form of deduction. As a result, the dynamism of Chinese logic, which relies on a deliberate staging of the future (sometimes with the help of stratagems of varying degrees of cunning), is strikingly different from the static nature of the classical image of logic (both traditional and modern), where logic is no more than a static guardian of correctness of reasoning. On the contrary, the Chinese concept of logic focuses on deriving consequences from strategic considerations regarding the future, actively and purposefully shaped by the subject who at the same time constructing both himself and the world around him.

Pilgrimage to the West: modern transformations of Chinese intellectual formation in social sciences

Since the mid-nineteenth century, Chinese intellectuals turned to the West for truth. China’s modern education system has since been built upon Western experience, with little space for China’s vast indigenous intellectual traditions. Meanwhile, Chinese traditions remain omnipresent and ubiquitous in the society. Due to many fundamental differences, Chinese and Western traditions are not compatible with each other. Constant tensions between them have led to Chinese people’s loss of spiritual homeland. Universities are both part of the reason for and a result of such a historical development. The shift of knowledge system from traditional learning to Western intellectual formation symbolizes the establishment of modern disciplines in Chinese universities. A better understanding of how traditional Chinese intellectual traditions were driven out of their homeland as Western knowledge became institutionalized is much needed in the literature. This article intends to fill the gap by exploring how the Chinese mind was transformed through the lens of institutionalization of social sciences. It focuses on internationalization and indigenization of China’s social sciences with particular attention to the interactions between Chinese and Western intellectual traditions.

The Forgotten Book of Richard Wilhelm: Chinese Economic Psychology

This paper explores the life and work of Richard Wilhelm. It argues that Wilhelm's oeuvre can be seen as both a unique bridge between European and Chinese intellectual traditions and as a collision...

Vanishing into Things: Knowledge in Chinese Tradition by Barry Allen

Reviewed by: Vanishing into Things: Knowledge in Chinese Tradition by Barry Allen Shane Ryan (bio) and Chienkuo Mi (bio) Vanishing into Things: Knowledge in Chinese Tradition. By Barry Allen. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. 289. Hardcover $45.00, isbn 978-0-674-33591-2. Introduction Barry Allen's Vanishing into Things discusses intellectual traditions of Chinese philosophy through the thematic thread of knowledge. The thread takes us chapter by chapter from Confucianism, Daoism, and The Art of War to Chan Buddhism and The Investigation of Things. The final chapter discusses "resonance" and the part it has played in Chinese intellectual history. It wouldn't be surprising if such an ambitious work, covering the range of intellectual traditions that Allen covers, became fragmentary and disparate. After all, such [End Page 1299] traditions vary in significant ways and in certain respects are unrelated intellectually. What arrests this tendency is the commonality that Allen identifies in the treatment of knowledge. In particular, Allen advances the view that Chinese philosophy is concerned with "wise knowledge." This is the sort of knowledge that, among other things, allows us to live well (pp. 20–21, 80). The result is a quite comprehensive work on Chinese philosophy and the topic of knowledge, or at least one aspect of knowledge, and as such is a valuable resource for the increasing number of scholars interested in both Chinese philosophy and knowledge. Indeed, the book's strength is testified to by the fact that what Allen writes in his book can provide scholars with a basis for disagreeing with views that Allen advances. Allen deserves credit for this. The view that Chinese philosophy is concerned with wise knowledge is contrasted with the concern, as Allen sees it, of epistemology from the Western tradition. This contrast, presented as favorable to Chinese philosophy, is another of the central views advanced in Allen's book and, unfortunately, is perhaps the weakest aspect of the book. The case that Allen makes vis-à-vis Chinese philosophy and epistemology is, as we shall see, problematic. In the second part of our review we discuss in detail the account Allen provides of knowledge across Chinese intellectual traditions. The principal idea conveyed by Allen is that Chinese philosophy is concerned with wise knowledge and not everyday knowledge. Rather than there being a break between the concern for wise knowledge and everyday knowledge, however, we find merely a difference in emphasis. In contrast to what Allen writes, we believe there is a concern for everyday knowledge in Chinese philosophy. The Contrasting of Chinese Philosophy and Western Philosophy Allen introduces his book by telling the story of a servant dashing a duke's plans for war. The servant attends to small details to draw the correct conclusion that the duke is planning for war against a neighboring state. The airing by the servant of the duke's secret plan for war forces the duke to give up the plan. We are told that the servant is called a sage by Guan Zhong, who himself is a "sage statesman" (pp. 1–2). His is a case that exemplifies what Allen calls "wise knowledge." It tells us what Chinese philosophy expects and values in such knowledge. A Chinese proverb says of the sage that "from the inconspicuous he hits upon brightness" (p. 2). Another proverb in the Daodejing makes the same basic point: "To really see the little things is called enlightenment" (ibid.). Finally, in the Huainanzi, we have a further and more explicit variation on this: "Since the beginnings of good and bad fortune are tiny as a sprout, people overlook them. Only sages see their beginnings and know their ends. … The sage's perception of outcomes at their origin is subtle" (quoted on p. 2). Allen notes the importance given to "[p]enetrating the subtle—seeing a lot in little things. Discerning the concordant and contrary—knowing the resonance among things, and how to amplify or dampen emerging tendencies" is the "leading idea" with regard to wise knowledge in the Chinese tradition (p. 3; Allen's own emphasis).1 He describes [End Page 1300] this capacity to see what the little things portend as the "cognitive accomplishment" of...

Prophets: More Patriots Than Traitors?—A Discussion of Prophetic Patriotism Using the Prophet to the Nations, Jeremiah, as an Example

EDITOR’S ABSTRACTLiu Ping discusses patriotism and nationalism in regard to culture and values and also the role of the prophetic voice in Chinese society. His provocative allegorical rewriting of a prophecy from the Biblical book of Amos, setting it in contemporary China, is pointedly political. Liu writes in the Chinese intellectual tradition of pointing out when a society or a country is on the brink of destruction.

“Emotions that Do Not Move”: Zhuangzi and Stoics on Self-Emerging Feelings

This essay develops a comparison between the Stoic and Daoist theories of emotions in order to provide a new interpretation of the emotional life of the wise person according to the Daoist classic Zhuangzi 莊子, and to shed light on larger divergences between the Greco-Roman and Chinese intellectual traditions. The core argument is that both Zhuangzi and the Stoics believed that there is a peculiar kind of emotional responses that emerge by themselves and are therefore wholly natural, since they do not involve evaluative judgment and desire, and distinguished them sharply from emotions, or “passions,” that arise as a result of mistaken evaluative judgments and artificial additions to things as they are, as well as to self-emerging feelings themselves. It is argued that while both Zhuangzi and the Stoics acknowledged the natural and therefore normative status of self-emerging feelings, Zhuangzi assessed them more favorably than the Stoics. The final part of the essay suggests that this divergence can be ultimately traced to different dichotomies that structured the debates in both traditions: rational versus non-rational in the Greco-Roman tradition, and artificial versus natural in the Chinese.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Democracy in Confucianism

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Democracy in Confucianism

Political Unity in Neo-Confucianism: The Debate between Wang Yangming and Zhan Ruoshui

In the Chinese intellectual tradition, King Wu's military expedition and Bo Yi's (and Shu Qi's) objection to it were well known. King Wu had been admired in that he saved people by dethroning the tyrant King Zhou. At the same time, Bo Yi and Shu Qi also had been praised for their loyalty to that same dynasty. These seemingly contradictory evaluations open a window on how unity can be conceived in Neo-Confucianism, particularly when one is faced with the possibility of colliding values. By examining the debate between Wang Yangming (1472-1529) and Zhan Ruoshui (1466-1560) over such a complex political issue, this article aims to unravel various tensions embedded in Neo-Confucian political philosophy.

The Mozi: A Complete Translation (review)

Reviewed by: The Mozi: A Complete Translation Hui-chieh Loy The Mozi: A Complete Translation. Translated and annotated by Ian Johnston. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Pp. lxxxviii + 944. Hardcover $85.00. As Ian Johnston observes in the introduction to his new The Mozi: A Complete Translation, the Mozi is "unquestionably one of the most important books in the history of Chinese philosophy" (p. xvii). Indeed, the text is our chief source for the intellectual productions of Mozi (fl. late fifth century to early fourth century B.C.E.) and members of the school he founded (the "Mohists"). Apart from its inherent philosophical interest to contemporary scholars of Chinese philosophy, the text is indispensable to the study of the history of Chinese thought, as Mohist ideas exerted significant influence over the broader intellectual scene up to the early days of Empire. Yet, as Johnston points out, it has also been "a sadly neglected work" (p. xviii). Consider, for instance, the metric of available translations in English: until Johnston's attempt, there has not been a single complete edition of the Mozi in English (the last one in a Western language was that by Alfred Forke in German). This state of affairs is perhaps only to be expected considering certain special features of the corpus. The text is notoriously corrupt in places—a consequence of its relative neglect within the Chinese intellectual tradition until later imperial times. There is also the disparate nature of the contents of the corpus: the three main divisions in terms of content are: (1) the ethical and political chapters (chapters 1-39 and 46-51), (2) the dialectical chapters (40-45), and (3) the technical chapters on defense (52-71). Given that the three divisions are rather different in the type of specialist knowledge [End Page 308] required for handling them effectively, it is perhaps only to be expected that few would attempt a complete translation. And so the current commonly used English version of the dialectical chapters is Angus C. Graham's Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science (1978), while that for the defense chapters is the unpublished 1980 Ph.D. Dissertation "The City Under Siege" (1980) by Robin Yates. The remaining chapters were last given a complete treatment in Y. P. Mei, The Ethical and Political Work of Motse (1927), though the most widely used English versions today are probably those by Burton Watson (1963) and P. J. Ivanhoe (2001), both of whom offer but parts of the "core" chapters (chapters 8-86). With the preamble above in mind, we can thus appreciate the sheer scope and ambition of what Ian Johnston is aiming to achieve by giving us an English translation of the complete Mozi corpus. But not just the translation: the Chinese text is provided on facing pages, with generous footnotes for both original and translation. In addition, there is also a substantial introduction that discusses the historical sources on Mozi the man, the Mohist school, the nature and divisions of the Mozi corpus, a synoptic overview of the doctrines in the "core" chapters, Mohist responses to other pre-Han thinkers, pre-Han responses to Mohism (especially Mencius, Xunzi, Zhuangzi, and Hanfeizi, and, more briefly, the Lüshi chunqiu and Huainanzi), a complete translation of Han Yu's (C.E. 768-824) essay "On Reading Mozi," and a brief note on the existing translations (both in modern Chinese and Western Languages) and the translator's aim to "attain that elusive balance between accuracy and readability" (p. lxxx). Given the brevity of the introduction relative to the scope of the topics covered, it is only to be expected that there will be points that invite dissent from fellow students of the Mozi. Nonetheless, the introduction should prove useful to readers looking for information on the larger intellectual-historical background and the issues regarding the nature of the text. The translation itself is readable and largely dependable. Most of the passages that are harder to make sense of (due to textual corruption or lack of knowledge about Mohist technical usages) tend to be in the dialectical and defense divisions of the text—and it is to Johnston's credit that he has included...