Confucianism
Overview
Scholarly tradition and way of life propagated by Confucius in the
6th–5th century bc and followed by the Chinese for more than two
millennia.
Though not organized as a religion, it has deeply influenced East
Asian spiritual and political life in a comparable manner. The core idea
is ren (“humaneness,” “benevolence”), signifying excellent character in
accord with li (ritual norms), zhong (loyalty to one’s true nature), shu
(reciprocity), and xiao (filial piety). Together these constitute de
(virtue). Mencius, Xunzi, and others sustained Confucianism, but it was
not influential until Dong Zhongshu emerged in the 2nd century bc.
Confucianism was then recognized as the Han state cult, and the Five
Classics became the core of education. In spite of the influence of
Daoism and Buddhism, Confucian ethics have had the strongest influence
on the moral fabric of Chinese society. A revival of Confucian thought
in the 11th century produced Neo-Confucianism, a major influence in
Korea during the Chosŏn dynasty and in Japan during the Tokugawa period.
Main
the way of life propagated by Confucius in the 6th–5th century bce and
followed by the Chinese people for more than two millennia. Although
transformed over time, it is still the substance of learning, the source
of values, and the social code of the Chinese. Its influence has also
extended to other countries, particularly Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.
Confucianism, a Western term that has no counterpart in Chinese, is a
worldview, a social ethic, a political ideology, a scholarly tradition,
and a way of life. Sometimes viewed as a philosophy and sometimes as a
religion, Confucianism may be understood as an all-encompassing way of
thinking and living that entails ancestor reverence and a profound
human-centred religiousness. East Asians may profess themselves to be
Shintōists, Daoists, Buddhists, Muslims, or Christians, but, by
announcing their religious affiliations, seldom do they cease to be
Confucians.
Although often grouped with the major historical religions,
Confucianism differs from them by not being an organized religion.
Nonetheless, it spread to other East Asian countries under the influence
of Chinese literate culture and has exerted a profound influence on
spiritual and political life. Both the theory and practice of
Confucianism have indelibly marked the patterns of government, society,
education, and family of East Asia. Although it is an exaggeration to
characterize traditional Chinese life and culture as Confucian,
Confucian ethical values have for well over 2,000 years served as the
source of inspiration as well as the court of appeal for human
interaction between individuals, communities, and nations in the Sinitic
world.
The thought of Confucius
The story of Confucianism does not begin with Confucius. Nor was
Confucius the founder of Confucianism in the sense that Buddha was the
founder of Buddhism and Christ the founder of Christianity. Rather
Confucius considered himself a transmitter who consciously tried to
reanimate the old in order to attain the new. He proposed revitalizing
the meaning of the past by advocating a ritualized life. Confucius’ love
of antiquity was motivated by his strong desire to understand why
certain life forms and institutions, such as reverence for ancestors,
human-centred religious practices, and mourning ceremonies, had survived
for centuries. His journey into the past was a search for roots, which
he perceived as grounded in humanity’s deepest needs for belonging and
communicating. He had faith in the cumulative power of culture. The fact
that traditional ways had lost vitality did not, for him, diminish their
potential for regeneration in the future. In fact, Confucius’ sense of
history was so strong that he saw himself as a conservationist
responsible for the continuity of the cultural values and the social
norms that had worked so well for the idealized civilization of the
Western Zhou dynasty.
The thought of Confucius » The historical context
The scholarly tradition envisioned by Confucius can be traced to the
sage-kings of antiquity. Although the earliest dynasty confirmed by
archaeology is the Shang dynasty (18th–12th century bce), the historical
period that Confucius claimed as relevant was much earlier. Confucius
may have initiated a cultural process known in the West as Confucianism,
but he and those who followed him considered themselves part of a
tradition, later identified by Chinese historians as the rujia,
“scholarly tradition,” that had its origins two millennia previously,
when the legendary sages Yao and Shun created a civilized world through
moral persuasion.
Confucius’ hero was Zhougong, or the Duke of Zhou (d. 1094 bce), who
was said to have helped consolidate, expand, and refine the “feudal”
ritual system. This elaborate system of mutual dependence was based on
blood ties, marriage alliances, and old covenants as well as on newly
negotiated contracts. The appeal to cultural values and social norms for
the maintenance of interstate as well as domestic order was predicated
on a shared political vision, namely, that authority lies in universal
kingship, heavily invested with ethical and religious power by the
“mandate of heaven” (tianming), and that social solidarity is achieved
not by legal constraint but by ritual observance. Its implementation
enabled the Western Zhou dynasty to survive in relative peace and
prosperity for more than five centuries.
Inspired by the statesmanship of Zhougong, Confucius harboured a
lifelong dream to be in a position to emulate the duke by putting into
practice the political ideas that he had learned from the ancient sages
and worthies. Although Confucius never realized his political dream, his
conception of politics as moral persuasion became more and more
influential.
The concept of “heaven” (tian), unique in Zhou cosmology, was
compatible with that of the Lord on High (Shangdi) in the Shang dynasty.
Lord on High may have referred to the ancestral progenitor of the Shang
royal lineage, but heaven to the Zhou kings, although also ancestral,
was a more generalized anthropomorphic god. The Zhou belief in the
mandate of heaven (the functional equivalent of the will of the Lord on
High) differed from the divine right of kings in that there was no
guarantee that the descendants of the Zhou royal house would be
entrusted with kingship, for, as written in the Shujing (“Classic of
History”), “heaven sees as the people see [and] hears as the people
hear”; thus the virtues of the kings were essential for the maintenance
of their power and authority. This emphasis on benevolent rulership,
expressed in numerous bronze inscriptions, was both a reaction to the
collapse of the Shang dynasty and an affirmation of a deep-rooted
worldview.
Partly because of the vitality of the feudal ritual system and partly
because of the strength of the royal household itself, the Zhou kings
were able to control their kingdom for several centuries. In 771 bce,
however, they were forced to move their capital eastward to present-day
Luoyang to avoid barbarian attacks from Central Asia. Real power
thereafter passed into the hands of feudal lords. Since the surviving
line of the Zhou kings continued to be recognized in name, they still
managed to exercise some measure of symbolic control. By Confucius’
time, however, the feudal ritual system had been so fundamentally
undermined that the political crises also precipitated a profound sense
of moral decline: the centre of symbolic control could no longer hold
the kingdom, which had devolved from centuries of civil war into 14
feudal states.
Confucius’ response was to address himself to the issue of learning
to be human. In so doing he attempted to redefine and revitalize the
institutions that for centuries had been vital to political stability
and social order: the family, the school, the local community, the
state, and the kingdom. Confucius did not accept the status quo, which
held that wealth and power spoke the loudest. He felt that virtue, both
as a personal quality and as a requirement for leadership, was essential
for individual dignity, communal solidarity, and political order.
The thought of Confucius » The Analects as the embodiment of Confucian
ideas
The Lunyu (Analects), the most revered sacred scripture in the Confucian
tradition, was probably compiled by the succeeding generations of
Confucius’ disciples. Based primarily on the Master’s sayings, preserved
in both oral and written transmissions, it captures the Confucian spirit
in form and content in the same way that the Platonic dialogues embody
Socratic pedagogy.
The Analects has often been viewed by the critical modern reader as a
collection of unrelated reflections randomly put together. This
impression may have resulted from the unfortunate perception of
Confucius as a mere commonsense moralizer who gave practical advice to
students in everyday situations. If readers approach the Analects as a
communal memory, a literary device on the part of those who considered
themselves beneficiaries of the Confucian Way to continue the Master’s
memory and to transmit his form of life as a living tradition, they come
close to why it has been so revered in China for centuries. Interchanges
with various historical figures and his disciples are used to show
Confucius in thought and action, not as an isolated individual but as
the centre of relationships. Actually the sayings of the Analects reveal
Confucius’ personality—his ambitions, his fears, his joys, his
commitments, and above all his self-knowledge.
The purpose, then, in compiling these distilled statements centring
on Confucius seems not to have been to present an argument or to record
an event but to offer an invitation to readers to take part in an
ongoing conversation. Through the Analects Confucians for centuries
learned to reenact the awe-inspiring ritual of participating in a
conversation with Confucius.
One of Confucius’ most significant personal descriptions is the short
autobiographical account of his spiritual development found in the
Analects:
At 15 I set my heart on learning; at 30 I firmly took my stand; at 40
I had no delusions; at 50 I knew the mandate of heaven; at 60 my ear was
attuned; at 70 I followed my heart’s desire without overstepping the
boundaries. (2:4)
Confucius’ life as a student and teacher exemplified his idea that
education was a ceaseless process of self-realization. When one of his
students reportedly had difficulty describing him, Confucius came to his
aid:
Why did you not simply say something to this effect: he is the sort
of man who forgets to eat when he engages himself in vigorous pursuit of
learning, who is so full of joy that he forgets his worries, and who
does not notice that old age is coming on? (7:18)
Confucius was deeply concerned that the culture (wen) he cherished
was not being transmitted and that the learning (xue) he propounded was
not being taught. His strong sense of mission, however, never interfered
with his ability to remember what had been imparted to him, to learn
without flagging, and to teach without growing weary. What he demanded
of himself was strenuous:
It is these things that cause me concern: failure to cultivate
virtue, failure to go deeply into what I have learned, inability to move
up to what I have heard to be right, and inability to reform myself when
I have defects. (7:3)
What he demanded of his students was the willingness to learn: “I do
not enlighten anyone who is not eager to learn, nor encourage anyone who
is not anxious to put his ideas into words (7:8).
The community that Confucius created was a scholarly fellowship of
like-minded men of different ages and different backgrounds from
different states. They were attracted to Confucius because they shared
his vision and to varying degrees took part in his mission to bring
moral order to an increasingly fragmented world. This mission was
difficult and even dangerous. Confucius himself suffered from
joblessness, homelessness, starvation, and occasionally life-threatening
violence. Yet his faith in the survivability of the culture that he
cherished and the workability of the approach to teaching that he
propounded was so steadfast that he convinced his followers as well as
himself that heaven was on their side. When Confucius’ life was
threatened in Kuang, he said:
Since the death of King Wen [founder of the Zhou dynasty] does not
the mission of culture (wen) rest here in me? If heaven intends this
culture to be destroyed, those who come after me will not be able to
have any part of it. If heaven does not intend this culture to be
destroyed, then what can the men of Kuang do to me? (9:5)
This expression of self-confidence informed by a powerful sense of
mission may give the impression that there was presumptuousness in
Confucius’ self-image. Confucius, however, made it explicit that he was
far from attaining sagehood and that all he really excelled in was “love
of learning” (5:27). To him, learning not only broadened his knowledge
and deepened his self-awareness but also defined who he was. He frankly
admitted that he was not born endowed with knowledge, nor did he belong
to the class of men who could transform society without knowledge.
Rather, he reported that he used his ears widely and followed what was
good in what he had heard and used his eyes widely and retained in his
mind what he had seen. His learning constituted “a lower level of
knowledge” (7:27), a practical level that was presumably accessible to
the majority of human beings. In this sense Confucius was neither a
prophet with privileged access to the divine nor a philosopher who had
already seen the truth but a teacher of humanity who was also an
advanced fellow traveler on the way to self-realization.
As a teacher of humanity Confucius stated his ambition in terms of
concern for human beings: “To bring comfort to the old, to have trust in
friends, and to cherish the young” (5:25). Confucius’ vision of the way
to develop a moral community began with a holistic reflection on the
human condition. Instead of dwelling on abstract speculations such as
man’s condition in the state of nature, Confucius sought to understand
the actual situation of a given time and to use that as his point of
departure. His aim was to restore trust in government and to transform
society into a flourishing moral community by cultivating a sense of
humanity in politics and society. To achieve that aim, the creation of a
scholarly community, the fellowship of junzi (exemplary persons), was
essential. In the words of Confucius’ disciple Zengzi, exemplary persons
must be broad-minded and resolute, for their burden is heavy and
their road is long. They take humanity as their burden. Is that not
heavy? Only with death does their road come to an end. Is that not long?
(8:7)
The fellowship of junzi as moral vanguards of society, however, did
not seek to establish a radically different order. Its mission was to
redefine and revitalize those institutions that for centuries were
believed to have maintained social solidarity and enabled people to live
in harmony and prosperity. An obvious example of such an institution was
the family.
It is related in the Analects that Confucius, when asked why he did
not take part in government, responded by citing a passage from the
ancient Shujing (“Classic of History”), “Simply by being a good son and
friendly to his brothers a man can exert an influence upon government!”
to show that what a person does in the confines of his home is
politically significant (2:21). This maxim is based on the Confucian
conviction that cultivation of the self is the root of social order and
that social order is the basis for political stability and enduring
peace.
The assertion that family ethics is politically efficacious must be
seen in the context of the Confucian conception of politics as
“rectification” (zheng). Rulers should begin by rectifying their own
conduct; that is, they are to be examples who govern by moral leadership
and exemplary teaching rather than by force. Government’s responsibility
is not only to provide food and security but also to educate the people.
Law and punishment are the minimum requirements for order; the higher
goal of social harmony, however, can only be attained by virtue
expressed through ritual performance. To perform rituals, then, is to
take part in a communal act to promote mutual understanding.
One of the fundamental Confucian values that ensures the integrity of
ritual performance is xiao (filial piety). Indeed, Confucius saw filial
piety as the first step toward moral excellence, which he believed lay
in the attainment of the cardinal virtue, ren (humanity). To learn to
embody the family in the mind and heart is to become able to move beyond
self-centredness or, to borrow from modern psychology, to transform the
enclosed private ego into an open self. Filial piety, however, does not
demand unconditional submissiveness to parental authority but
recognition of and reverence for the source of life. The purpose of
filial piety, as the ancient Greeks expressed it, is to enable both
parent and child to flourish. Confucians see it as an essential way of
learning to be human.
Confucians, moreover, are fond of applying the family metaphor to the
community, the country, and the cosmos. They prefer to address the
emperor as the son of heaven (tianzi), the king as ruler-father, and the
magistrate as the “father-mother official” because to them the
family-centred nomenclature implies a political vision. When Confucius
said that taking care of family affairs is itself active participation
in politics, he had already made it clear that family ethics is not
merely a private concern; the public good is realized by and through it.
Confucius defined the process of becoming human as being able to
“discipline yourself and return to ritual” (12:1). The dual focus on the
transformation of the self (Confucius is said to have freed himself from
four things: “opinionatedness, dogmatism, obstinacy, and egoism” [9:4])
and on social participation enabled Confucius to be loyal (zhong) to
himself and considerate (shu) of others (4:15). It is easy to understand
why the Confucian “golden rule” is “Do not do unto others what you would
not want others to do unto you!” (15:23). Confucius’ legacy, laden with
profound ethical implications, is captured by his “plain and real”
appreciation that learning to be human is a communal enterprise:
Persons of humanity, in wishing to establish themselves, also
establish others, and in wishing to enlarge themselves, also enlarge
others. The ability to take as analogy what is near at hand can be
called the method of humanity. (6:30)
Formation of the classical Confucian tradition
According to Hanfeizi (d. 233 bce), shortly after Confucius’ death his
followers split into eight distinct schools, all claiming to be the
legitimate heir to the Confucian legacy. Presumably each school was
associated with or inspired by one or more of Confucius’ disciples. Yet
the Confucians did not exert much influence in the 5th century bce.
Although the reverent Yan Yuan (or Yan Hui), the faithful Zengzi, the
talented Zigong, the erudite Zixia, and others may have generated a
great deal of enthusiasm among the second generation of Confucius’
students, it was not at all clear at the time that the Confucian
tradition was to emerge as the most powerful one in Chinese history.
Mencius (c. 371–c. 289 bce) complained that the world of thought in
the early Warring States period (475–221 bce) was dominated by the
collectivism of Mozi and the individualism of Yang Zhu (440–c. 360 bce).
The historical situation a century after Confucius’ death clearly shows
that the Confucian attempt to moralize politics was not working; the
disintegration of the Zhou feudal ritual system and the rise of powerful
hegemonic states reveal that wealth and power spoke the loudest. The
hermits (the early Daoists), who left the world to create a sanctuary in
nature in order to lead a contemplative life, and the realists
(proto-Legalists), who played the dangerous game of assisting ambitious
kings to gain wealth and power so that they could influence the
political process, were actually determining the intellectual agenda.
The Confucians refused to be identified with the interests of the ruling
minority because their social consciousness impelled them to serve as
the conscience of the people. They were in a dilemma. Although they
wanted to be actively involved in politics, they could not accept the
status quo as the legitimate arena in which to exercise authority and
power. In short, they were in the world but not of it; they could not
leave the world, nor could they effectively change it.
Formation of the classical Confucian tradition » Mencius: The
paradigmatic Confucian intellectual
Mencius is known as the self-styled transmitter of the Confucian Way.
Educated first by his mother and then allegedly by a student of
Confucius’ grandson, Mencius brilliantly performed his role as a social
critic, a moral philosopher, and a political activist. He argued that
cultivating a class of scholar-officials who would not be directly
involved in agriculture, industry, and commerce was vital to the
well-being of the state. In his sophisticated argument against the
physiocrats (those who advocated the supremacy of agriculture), he
intelligently employed the idea of the division of labour to defend
those who labour with their minds, observing that service is as
important as productivity. To him Confucians served the vital interests
of the state as scholars not by becoming bureaucratic functionaries but
by assuming the responsibility of teaching the ruling minority humane
government (renzheng) and the kingly way (wangdao). In dealing with
feudal lords, Mencius conducted himself not merely as a political
adviser but also as a teacher of kings. Mencius made it explicit that a
true person cannot be corrupted by wealth, subdued by power, or affected
by poverty.
To articulate the relationship between Confucian moral idealism and
the concrete social and political realities of his time, Mencius began
by exposing as impractical the prevailing ideologies of Mozi’s
collectivism and Yang Zhu’s individualism. Mozi’s collectivism rested on
the advocacy of loving everyone. Mencius contended, however, that the
result of the Mohist admonition to treat a stranger as intimately as
one’s own father would be to treat one’s own father as indifferently as
one would treat a stranger. Yang Zhu, on the other hand, advocated the
primacy of the self. Mencius contended, however, that excessive
attention to self-interest would lead to political disorder. Indeed, in
Mohist collectivism fatherhood becomes a meaningless concept, and so
does kingship in Yang Zhu’s individualism.
Mencius’ strategy for social reform was to change the language of
profit, self-interest, wealth, and power by making it part of a moral
discourse, with emphasis on rightness, public-spiritedness, welfare, and
influence. Mencius, however, was not arguing against profit. Rather, he
instructed the feudal lords to look beyond the narrow horizon of their
palaces and to cultivate a common bond with their ministers, officers,
clerks, and the seemingly undifferentiated masses. Only then, Mencius
contended, would they be able to preserve their profit, self-interest,
wealth, and power. He encouraged them to extend their benevolence and
warned them that this was crucial for the protection of their families.
Mencius’ appeal to the common bond among all people as a mechanism of
government was predicated on his strong “populist” sense that the people
are more important than the state and the state more important than the
king and that the ruler who does not act in accordance with the kingly
way is unfit to rule. Mencius insisted that an unfit ruler should be
criticized, rehabilitated, or, as the last resort, deposed. Since
“heaven sees as the people see; heaven hears as the people hear,”
revolution, or literally the change of the mandate (geming), in severe
cases is not only justifiable but is a moral imperative.
Mencius’ “populist” conception of politics was predicated on his
philosophical vision that human beings can perfect themselves through
effort and that human nature (xing) is good. While he acknowledged the
role of biological and environmental factors in shaping the human
condition, he insisted that human beings become moral by willing to be
so. According to Mencius, willing entails the transformative moral act
insofar as the propensity of humans to be good is activated whenever
they decide to bring it to their conscious attention.
Mencius taught that all people have the spiritual resources to deepen
their self-awareness and strengthen their bonds with others. Biologic
and environmental constraints notwithstanding, people always have the
freedom and the ability to refine and enlarge their heaven-endowed
nobility (their “great body”). The possibility of continuously refining
and enlarging the self is vividly illustrated in Mencius’ description of
degrees of excellence:
Those who are admirable are called good (shan). Those who are sincere
are called true (xin). Those who are totally genuine are called
beautiful (mei). Those who radiate this genuineness are called great
(da). Those whose greatness transforms are called sagely (sheng). Those
whose sageliness is unfathomable are called spiritual (shen). (VIIB:25)
Furthermore, Mencius asserted that if people fully realize the
potential of their hearts, they will understand their nature; by
understanding their nature, they will know heaven. Learning to be fully
human, in this Mencian perspective, entails the cultivation of human
sensitivity to embody the whole cosmos as one’s lived experience:
All myriad things are here in me. There is no greater joy for me than
to find, on self-examination, that I am true to myself. Try your best to
treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself, and you will find
that this is the shortest way to humanity. (VIIA:4)
Formation of the classical Confucian tradition » Xunzi: The transmitter
of Confucian scholarship
If Mencius brought Confucian moral idealism to fruition, Xunzi (c.
300–c. 230 bce) conscientiously transformed Confucianism into a
realistic and systematic inquiry on the human condition, with special
reference to ritual and authority. Widely acknowledged as the most
eminent of the notable scholars who congregated in Jixia, the capital of
the wealthy and powerful Qi state in the mid-3rd century bce, Xunzi
distinguished himself in erudition and by the quality of his
argumentation. His critique of the so-called 12 philosophers gave an
overview of the intellectual life of his time. His penetrating insight
into the limitations of virtually all the major currents of thought
propounded by his fellow thinkers helped to establish the Confucian
school as a dominant political and social force. His principal
adversary, however, was Mencius, and he vigorously attacked Mencius’
view that human nature is good as naive moral optimism.
True to the Confucian and, for that matter, Mencian spirit, Xunzi
underscored the centrality of self-cultivation. He defined the process
of Confucian education, from exemplary person (junzi) to sage, as a
ceaseless endeavour to accumulate knowledge, skills, insight, and
wisdom. In contrast to Mencius, Xunzi stressed that human nature is
evil. Because he saw human beings as prone by nature to pursue the
gratification of their passions, he firmly believed in the need for
clearly articulated social constraints. Without constraints, social
solidarity, the precondition for human well-being, would be undermined.
The most serious flaw he perceived in the Mencian commitment to the
goodness of human nature was the practical consequence of neglecting the
necessity of ritual and authority for the well-being of society. For
Xunzi, as for Confucius before him, becoming moral is hard work.
Xunzi singled out the cognitive function of the heart-and-mind (xin),
or human rationality, as the basis for morality. People become moral by
voluntarily harnessing their desires and passions to act in accordance
with society’s norms. Although this is alien to human nature, it is
perceived by the heart-and-mind as necessary for both survival and
well-being. It is the construction of the moral mind as a human
artifact, as a “second nature.” Like Mencius, Xunzi believed in the
perfectibility of all human beings through self-cultivation, in humanity
and rightness as cardinal virtues, in humane government as the kingly
way, in social harmony, and in education. But his view of how these
could actually be achieved was diametrically opposed to that of Mencius.
The Confucian project, as shaped by Xunzi, defines learning as
socialization. The authority of ancient sages and worthies, the
classical tradition, conventional norms, teachers, governmental rules
and regulations, and political officers are all important for this
process. A cultured person is by definition a fully socialized member of
the human community, who has successfully sublimated his instinctual
demands for the public good.
Xunzi’s tough-minded stance on law, order, authority, and ritual
seems precariously close to that of the Legalists, whose policy of
social conformism was designed exclusively for the benefit of the ruler.
His insistence on objective standards of behaviour may have
ideologically contributed to the rise of authoritarianism, which
resulted in the dictatorship of the Qin (221–207 bce). As a matter of
fact, two of the most influential Legalists, the theoretician Hanfeizi
from the state of Han and the Qin minister Li Si (c. 280–208 bce), were
his pupils. Yet Xunzi was instrumental in the continuation of
Confucianism as a scholarly enterprise. His naturalistic interpretation
of heaven, his sophisticated understanding of culture, his insightful
observations on the epistemological aspect of the mind and social
function of language, his emphasis on moral reasoning and the art of
argumentation, his belief in progress, and his interest in political
institutions so significantly enriched the Confucian heritage that he
was revered by the Confucians as the paradigmatic scholar for more than
three centuries.
Formation of the classical Confucian tradition » The Confucianization of
politics
The short-lived dictatorship of the Qin marked a brief triumph of
Legalism. In the early years of the Western Han (206 bce–25 ce),
however, the Legalist practice of absolute power of the emperor,
complete subjugation of the peripheral states to the central government,
total uniformity of thought, and ruthless enforcement of law were
replaced by the Daoist practice of reconciliation and noninterference.
This practice is commonly known in history as the Huang-Lao method,
referring to the art of rulership attributed to the Yellow Emperor
(Huangdi) and the mysterious founder of Daoism, Laozi. Although a few
Confucian thinkers, such as Lu Jia and Jia Yi, made important policy
recommendations, Confucianism before the emergence of Dong Zhongshu (c.
179–c. 104 bce) was not particularly influential. Nonetheless, the
gradual Confucianization of Han politics began soon after the founding
of the dynasty.
By the reign of Wudi (the Martial Emperor, 141–87 bce), who inherited
the task of consolidating power in the central Han court, Confucianism
was deeply entrenched in the central bureaucracy. It was manifest in
such practices as the clear separation of the court and the government,
often under the leadership of a scholarly prime minister, the process of
recruiting officials through the dual mechanism of recommendation and
selection, the family-centred social structure, the agriculture-based
economy, and the educational network. Confucian ideas were also firmly
established in the legal system as ritual became increasingly important
in governing behaviour, defining social relationships, and adjudicating
civil disputes. Yet it was not until the prime minister Gungsun Hong (d.
121 bce) had persuaded Wudi to announce formally that the ru school
alone would receive state sponsorship that Confucianism became an
officially recognized imperial ideology and state cult.
As a result Confucian Classics became the core curriculum for all
levels of education. In 136 bce Wudi set up at court five Erudites of
the Five Classics (see below The Five Classics) and in 124 bce assigned
50 official students to study with them, thus creating a de facto
imperial university. By 50 bce enrollment at the university had grown to
an impressive 3,000, and by 1 ce a hundred students a year were entering
government service through the examinations administered by the state.
In short, those with a Confucian education began to staff the
bureaucracy. In the year 58 all government schools were required to make
sacrifices to Confucius, and in 175 the court had the approved version
of the Classics, which had been determined by scholarly conferences and
research groups under imperial auspices for several decades, carved on
large stone tablets. (These stelae, which were erected at the capital,
are today well preserved in the museum of Xi’an.) This act of committing
to permanence and to public display the content of the sacred scriptures
symbolized the completion of the formation of the classical Confucian
tradition.
Formation of the classical Confucian tradition » The Five Classics
The compilation of the Wujing (The Five Classics) was a concrete
manifestation of the coming of age of the Confucian tradition. The
inclusion of both pre-Confucian texts, the Shujing (“Classic of
History”) and the Shijing (“Classic of Poetry”), and contemporary
Qin-Han material, such as certain portions of the Liji (“Record of
Rites”), suggests that the spirit behind the establishment of the core
curriculum for Confucian education was ecumenical. The Five Classics can
be described in terms of five visions: metaphysical, political, poetic,
social, and historical.
The metaphysical vision, expressed in the Yijing (“Classic of
Changes”), combines divinatory art with numerological technique and
ethical insight. According to the philosophy of change, the cosmos is a
great transformation occasioned by the constant interaction of two
complementary as well as conflicting vital energies, yin and yang. The
world, which emerges out of this ongoing transformation, exhibits both
organismic unity and dynamism. The exemplary person, inspired by the
harmony and creativity of the cosmos, must emulate this pattern by
aiming to realize the highest ideal of “unity of man and heaven”
(tianrenheyi) through ceaseless self-exertion.
The political vision, contained in the Shujing, presents kingship in
terms of the ethical foundation for a humane government. The legendary
Three Emperors (Yao, Shun, and Yu) all ruled by virtue. Their sagacity,
xiao (filial piety), and dedication to work enabled them to create a
political culture based on responsibility and trust. Their exemplary
lives taught and encouraged the people to enter into a covenant with
them so that social harmony could be achieved without punishment or
coercion. Even in the Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang, and Zhou) moral
authority, as expressed through ritual, was sufficient to maintain
political order. The human continuum, from the undifferentiated masses
to the enlightened people, the nobility, and the sage-king, formed an
organic unity as an integral part of the great cosmic transformation.
Politics means moral persuasion, and the purpose of the government is
not only to provide food and maintain order but also to educate.
The poetic vision, contained in the Shijing, underscores the
Confucian valuation of common human feelings. The majority of verses
give voice to emotions and sentiments of communities and persons from
all levels of society expressed on a variety of occasions. The basic
theme of this poetic world is mutual responsiveness. The tone as a whole
is honest rather than earnest and evocative rather than expressive.
The social vision, contained in the Liji, shows society not as an
adversarial system based on contractual relationships but as a community
of trust with emphasis on communication. Society organized by the four
functional occupations—the scholar, farmer, artisan, and merchant—is, in
the true sense of the word, a cooperation. As a contributing member of
the cooperation each person is obligated to recognize the existence of
others and to serve the public good. It is the king’s duty to act kingly
and the father’s duty to act fatherly. If the king or father fails to
behave properly, he cannot expect his minister or son to act in
accordance with ritual. It is in this sense that a chapter in the Liji
entitled the “Great Learning” specifies, “From the son of heaven to the
commoner, all must regard self-cultivation as the root.” This pervasive
consciousness of duty features prominently in all Confucian literature
on ritual.
The historical vision, presented in the Chunqiu (“Spring and Autumn
Annals”), emphasizes the significance of collective memory for communal
self-identification. Historical consciousness is a defining
characteristic of Confucian thought. By defining himself as a lover of
antiquity and a transmitter of its values, Confucius made it explicit
that a sense of history is not only desirable but is necessary for
self-knowledge. Confucius’ emphasis on the importance of history was in
a way his reappropriation of the ancient Sinitic wisdom that reanimating
the old is the best way to attain the new. Confucius may not have been
the author of the Chunqiu, but it seems likely that he applied moral
judgment to political events in China proper from the 8th to the 5th
century bce. In this unprecedented procedure he assumed a godlike role
in evaluating politics by assigning ultimate historical praise and blame
to the most powerful and influential political actors of the period. Not
only did this practice inspire the innovative style of the grand
historian Sima Qian (c. 145–c. 87 bce) but it was also widely employed
by others writing dynastic histories in imperial China.
Formation of the classical Confucian tradition » Dong Zhongshu: The
Confucian visionary
Like Sima Qian, Dong Zhongshu (c. 179–c. 104 bce) also took the Chunqiu
absolutely seriously. His own work, Chunqiufanlu (“Luxuriant Gems of the
Spring and Autumn Annals”), however, is far from being a book of
historical judgment. It is a metaphysical treatise in the spirit of the
Yijing. A man extraordinarily dedicated to learning (he is said to have
been so absorbed in his studies that for three years he did not even
glance at the garden in front of him) and strongly committed to moral
idealism (one of his often-quoted dicta is “rectifying rightness without
scheming for profit; enlightening his Way without calculating
efficaciousness”), Dong was instrumental in developing a
characteristically Han interpretation of Confucianism.
Despite Wudi’s pronouncement that Confucianism alone would receive
imperial sponsorship, Daoists, yin-yang cosmologists, Legalists,
shamanists, practitioners of seances, healers, magicians, geomancers,
and others all contributed to the cosmological thinking of the Han
cultural elite. Indeed, Dong himself was a beneficiary of this
intellectual syncretism, for he freely tapped the spiritual resources of
his time in formulating his own worldview: that human actions have
cosmic consequences.
Dong’s inquiries on the meaning of the five agents (metal, wood,
water, fire, and earth), the correspondence of human beings and the
numerical categories of heaven, and the sympathetic activation of things
of the same kind, as well as his studies of cardinal Confucian values
such as humanity, rightness, ritual, wisdom, and trustworthiness,
enabled him to develop an elaborate worldview integrating Confucian
ethics with naturalistic cosmology. What Dong accomplished was not
merely a theological justification for the emperor as the “son of
heaven”; rather, his theory of mutual responsiveness between heaven and
humanity provided the Confucian scholars with a higher law by which to
judge the conduct of the ruler.
Despite Dong’s immense popularity, his worldview was not universally
accepted by Han Confucian scholars. A reaction in favour of a more
rational and moralistic approach to the Confucian Classics, known as the
“Old Text” school, had already set in before the fall of the Western
Han. Yang Xiong (c. 53 bce–18 ce) in the Fayan (“Model Sayings”), a
collection of moralistic aphorisms in the style of the Analects, and the
Taixuanjing (“Classic of the Supremely Profound Principle”), a
cosmological speculation in the style of the Yijing, presented an
alternative worldview. This school, claiming its own recensions of
authentic classical texts allegedly rediscovered during the Han period
and written in an “old” script before the Qin unification, was widely
accepted in the Eastern Han (25–220 ce). As the institutions of the
Erudites and the Imperial University expanded in the Eastern Han, the
study of the Classics became more refined and elaborate. Confucian
scholasticism, however, like its counterparts in Talmudic and biblical
studies, became too professionalized to remain a vital intellectual
force.
Yet Confucian ethics exerted great influence on government, schools,
and society at large. Toward the end of the Han as many as 30,000
students attended the Imperial University. All public schools throughout
the land offered regular sacrifices to Confucius, and he virtually
became the patron saint of education. Many Confucian temples were also
built. The imperial courts continued to honour Confucius from age to
age; a Confucian temple eventually stood in every one of the 2,000
counties. As a result, the teacher, together with heaven, earth, the
emperor, and parents, became one of the most respected authorities in
traditional China.
Formation of the classical Confucian tradition » Confucian ethics in the
Daoist and Buddhist context
Incompetent rulership, faction-ridden bureaucracy, a mismanaged tax
structure, and domination by eunuchs toward the end of the Eastern Han
first prompted widespread protests by the Imperial University students.
The high-handed policy of the court to imprison and kill thousands of
them and their official sympathizers in 169 ce may have put a temporary
stop to the intellectual revolt, but the downward economic spiral made
the life of the peasantry unbearable. The peasant rebellion led by
Confucian scholars as well as Daoist religious leaders of faith-healing
sects, combined with open insurrections of the military, brought down
the Han dynasty and thus put an end to the first Chinese empire. As the
imperial Han system disintegrated, barbarians invaded from the north.
The plains of northern China were fought over, despoiled, and controlled
by rival groups, and a succession of states was established in the
south. This period of disunity, from the early 3rd to the late 6th
century, marked the decline of Confucianism, the upsurge of neo-Daoism,
and the spread of Buddhism.
The prominence of Daoism and Buddhism among the cultural elite and
the populace in general, however, did not mean that the Confucian
tradition had disappeared. In fact, Confucian ethics was by then
virtually inseparable from the moral fabric of Chinese society.
Confucius continued to be universally honoured as the paradigmatic sage.
The outstanding Daoist thinker Wang Bi (226–249) argued that Confucius,
by not speculating on the nature of the dao, had an experiential
understanding of it superior to Laozi’s. The Confucian Classics remained
the foundation of all literate culture, and sophisticated commentaries
were produced throughout the age. Confucian values continued to dominate
in such political institutions as the central bureaucracy, the
recruitment of officials, and local governance. The political forms of
life also were distinctively Confucian. When a barbarian state adopted a
sinicization policy, notably the case of the Northern Wei (386–534/535),
it was by and large Confucian in character. In the south systematic
attempts were made to strengthen family ties by establishing clan rules,
genealogical trees, and ancestral rituals based on Confucian ethics.
The reunification of China by the Sui (581–618) and the restoration
of lasting peace and prosperity by the Tang (618–907) gave a powerful
stimulus to the revival of Confucian learning. The publication of a
definitive, official edition of the Wujing with elaborate commentaries
and subcommentaries and the implementation of Confucian rituals at all
levels of governmental practice, including the compilation of the famous
Tang legal code, were two outstanding examples of Confucianism in
practice. An examination system was established based on literary
competence. This system made the mastery of Confucian Classics a
prerequisite for political success and was, therefore, perhaps the
single most important institutional innovation in defining elite culture
in Confucian terms.
The Tang dynasty, nevertheless, was dominated by Buddhism and, to a
lesser degree, by Daoism. The philosophical originality of the dynasty
was mainly represented by monk-scholars such as Jizang (549–623),
Xuanzang (602–664), and Zhiyi (538–597). An unintended consequence in
the development of Confucian thought in this context was the prominent
rise of the metaphysically significant Confucian texts, notably
Zhongyong (“Doctrine of the Mean”) and Yizhuan (“The Great Commentary of
the Classic of Changes”), which appealed to some Buddhist and Daoist
thinkers. A sign of a possible Confucian turn in the Tang was Li Ao’s
(d. c. 844) essay on “Returning to Nature” that foreshadowed features of
Song (960–1279) Confucian thought. The most influential precursor of a
Confucian revival, however, was Han Yu (768–824). He attacked Buddhism
from the perspectives of social ethics and cultural identity and
provoked interest in the question of what actually constitutes the
Confucian Way. The issue of Daotong, the transmission of the Way or the
authentic method to repossess the Way, has stimulated much discussion in
the Confucian tradition since the 11th century.
The Confucian revival
The Buddhist conquest of China and the Chinese transformation of
Buddhism, a process entailing the introduction, domestication, growth,
and appropriation of a distinctly Indian form of spirituality, lasted
for at least six centuries. Since Buddhist ideas were introduced to
China via Daoist categories and since the development of the Daoist
religion benefited from having Buddhist institutions and practices as
models, the spiritual dynamics in medieval China were characterized by
Buddhist and Daoist values. The reemergence of Confucianism as the
leading intellectual force thus involved both a creative response to the
Buddhist and Daoist challenge and an imaginative reappropriation of
classical Confucian insights. Furthermore, after the collapse of the
Tang dynasty, the grave threats to the survival of Chinese culture from
the Khitan, the Jurchen (Jin), and later the Mongols prompted the
literati to protect their common heritage by deepening their communal
critical self-awareness. To enrich their personal knowledge as well as
to preserve China as a civilization-state, they explored the symbolic
and spiritual resources that made Confucianism a living tradition.
The Confucian revival » The Song masters
The Song dynasty (960–1279) was militarily weak and much smaller than
the Tang, but its cultural splendour and economic prosperity were
unprecedented in Chinese, if not human, history. The Song’s commercial
revolution produced flourishing markets, densely populated urban
centres, elaborate communication networks, theatrical performances,
literary groups, and popular religions—developments that tended to
remain unchanged into the 19th century. Technological advances in
agriculture, textiles, lacquer, porcelain, printing, maritime trade, and
weaponry demonstrated that China excelled in the fine arts as well as in
the sciences. The decline of the aristocracy, the widespread
availability of printed books, the democratization of education, and the
full implementation of the examination system produced a new social
class, the gentry, noted for its literary proficiency, social
consciousness, and political participation. The outstanding members of
this class, such as the classicists Hu Yuan (993–1059) and Sun Fu
(992–1057), the reformers Fan Zhongyan (989–1052) and Wang Anshi
(1021–86), the writer-officials Ouyang Xiu (1007–72) and Su Shi (pen
name of Su Dongpo; 1037–1101), and the statesman-historian Sima Guang
(1019–86), contributed to the revival of Confucianism in education,
politics, literature, and history and collectively to the development of
a scholarly official style, a way of life informed by Confucian ethics.
The Confucian revival, understood in traditional historiography as
the establishment of the lineage of Daoxue (“Learning of the Way”),
nevertheless can be traced through a line of neo-Confucian thinkers from
Zhou Dunyi (1017–73) by way of Shao Yong (1011–77), Zhang Zai (1020–77),
the brothers Cheng Hao (1032–85) and Cheng Yi (1033–1107), and the great
synthesizer Zhu Xi (1130–1200). These men developed a comprehensive
humanist vision in which cultivation of the self was integrated with
social ethics and moral metaphysics. In the eyes of the Song literati
this new philosophy faithfully restored the classical Confucian insights
and successfully applied them to the concerns of their own age.
Zhou Dunyi ingeniously articulated the relationship between the
“great transformation” of the cosmos and the moral development of human
beings. In his metaphysics, humanity, as the recipient of the highest
excellence from heaven, is itself a centre of cosmic creativity. He
developed this all-embracing humanism by a thought-provoking
interpretation of the Daoist diagram of Taiji (“Great Ultimate”). Shao
Yong elaborated on the metaphysical basis of human affairs, insisting
that a disinterested numerological mode of analysis is most appropriate
for understanding the “supreme principles governing the world.” Zhang
Zai, on the other hand, focused on the omnipresence of qi (“vital
energy”). He also advocated the oneness of li (“principle”; comparable
to the idea of Natural Law) and the multiplicity of its manifestations,
which is created as the principle expresses itself through the “vital
energy.” As an article of faith he pronounced in the “Western
Inscription”: “Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother, and even such
a small being as I finds a central abode in their midst. Therefore that
which fills the cosmos I regard as my body and that which directs the
cosmos I consider as my nature. All people are my brothers and sisters,
and all things are my companions.”
This theme of mutuality between heaven and human beings,
consanguinity between man and man, and harmony between man and nature
was brought to fruition in Cheng Hao’s definition of humanity as
“forming one body with all things.” To him the presence of tianli
(“heavenly principle”) in all things as well as in human nature enables
the human mind to purify itself in a spirit of reverence. Cheng Yi,
following his brother’s lead, formulated the famous dictum,
“self-cultivation requires reverence; the extension of knowledge
consists in the investigation of things.” By making special reference to
gewu (“investigation of things”), he raised doubts about the
appropriateness of focusing exclusively on the illumination of the mind
in self-cultivation, as his brother seems to have done. The learning of
the mind as advocated by Cheng Hao and the learning of the principle as
advocated by Cheng Yi became two distinct modes of thought in Song
Confucianism.
Zhu Xi, clearly following Cheng Yi’s School of Principle and
implicitly rejecting Cheng Hao’s School of Mind, developed a method of
interpreting and transmitting the Confucian Way that for centuries
defined Confucianism not only for the Chinese but for the Koreans and
the Japanese as well. If, as quite a few scholars have advocated,
Confucianism represents a distinct form of East Asian spirituality, it
is the Confucianism shaped by Zhu Xi. Zhu Xi virtually reconstituted the
Confucian tradition, giving it new structure, new texture, and new
meaning. He was more than a synthesizer; through conscientious
appropriation and systematic interpretation he gave rise to a new
Confucianism, known as neo-Confucianism in the West but often referred
to as lixue (“Learning of the Principle”) in modern China.
The “Doctrine of the Mean” and the “Great Learning,” two chapters in
the Liji, had become independent treatises and, together with the
Analects and Mencius, had been included in the core curriculum of
Confucian education for centuries before Zhu Xi’s birth. But by putting
them into a particular sequence, the “Great Learning,” the Analects,
Mencius, and the “Doctrine of the Mean,” synthesizing their
commentaries, interpreting them as a coherent humanistic vision, and
calling them the Four Books (Sishu), Zhu Xi fundamentally restructured
the Confucian scriptural tradition. The Four Books, placed above the
Five Classics, became the central texts for both primary education and
civil service examinations in traditional China from the 14th century.
Thus they have exerted far greater influence on Chinese life and thought
in the past 600 years than any other work.
As an interpreter and transmitter of the Confucian Way, Zhu Xi
identified which early Song masters belonged to the lineage of Confucius
and Mencius. His judgment, later widely accepted by governments in East
Asia, was based principally on philosophical insight. Zhou Dunyi, Zhang
Zai, and the Cheng brothers, the select four, were Zhu Xi’s cultural
heroes. Shao Yong and Sima Guang were originally on his list, but Zhu Xi
apparently changed his mind, perhaps because of Shao’s excessive
metaphysical speculation and Sima’s obsession with historical facts.
Up until Zhu Xi’s time the Confucian thinking of the Song masters was
characterized by a few fruitfully ambiguous concepts, notably the Great
Ultimate, principle, vital energy, nature, mind, and humanity. Zhu Xi
defined the process of the investigation of things as a rigorous
discipline of the mind to probe the principle in things. He recommended
a twofold method of study: to cultivate a sense of reverence and to
pursue knowledge. This combination of morality and wisdom made his
pedagogy an inclusive approach to humanist education. Reading, sitting
quietly, ritual practice, physical exercise, calligraphy, arithmetic,
and empirical observation all had a place in his pedagogical program.
Zhu Xi reestablished the White Deer Grotto in present Jiangxi province
as an academy. It became the intellectual centre of his age and provided
an instructional model for all schools in East Asia for generations to
come.
Zhu Xi was considered the preeminent Confucian scholar in Song China,
but his interpretation of the Confucian Way was seriously challenged by
his contemporary, Lu Jiuyuan (Lu Xiangshan, 1139–93). Claiming that he
appropriated the true wisdom of Confucian teaching by reading Mencius,
Lu criticized Zhu Xi’s theory of the investigation of things as
fragmented and ineffective empiricism. Instead he advocated a return to
Mencian moral idealism by insisting that establishing the “great body”
(i.e., heaven-endowed nobility) is the primary precondition for
self-realization. To him the learning of the mind as a quest for
self-knowledge provided the basis upon which the investigation of things
assumed its proper significance. Lu’s confrontation with Zhu Xi in the
famous meeting at the Goose Lake Temple in 1175 further convinced him
that Confucianism as Zhu Xi had shaped it was not Mencian. Although Lu’s
challenge remained a minority position for some time, his learning of
the mind later became a major intellectual force in Ming China
(1368–1644) and Tokugawa Japan (1603–1867).
The Confucian revival » Confucian learning in Jin, Yuan, and Ming
For about 150 years, from the time the Song court moved its capital to
the South and reestablished itself there in 1127, North China was ruled
by three conquest dynasties, the Liao (907–1125), Xi Xia (1038–1227),
and Jin (1115–1234). Although the bureaucracies and political cultures
of both Liao and Xi Xia were under Confucian influence, no discernible
intellectual developments helped to further the Confucian tradition
there. In the Jurchen Jin dynasty, however, despite the paucity of
information about the Confucian renaissance in the Southern Song, the
Jin scholar-officials continued the classical, artistic, literary, and
historiographic traditions of the North and developed a richly textured
cultural form of their own. Zhao Bingwen’s (1159–1232) combination of
literary talent and moral concerns and Wang Roxu’s (1174–1243)
scholarship in Classics and history, as depicted in Yuan Haowen’s
(1190–1257) biographical sketches and preserved in their collected
works, compared well with the high standards set by their counterparts
in the South.
When the Mongols reunited China in 1279, the intellectual dynamism of
the South profoundly affected the northern style of scholarship.
Although the harsh treatment of scholars by the conquest Yuan (Mongol)
dynasty (1206–1368) seriously damaged the well-being of the scholarly
community, outstanding Confucian thinkers nevertheless emerged
throughout the period. Some opted to purify themselves so that they
could repossess the Way for the future; some decided to become engaged
in politics to put their teaching into practice.
Xu Heng (1209–81) took a practical approach. Appointed by Kublai, the
Great Khan in Marco Polo’s Description of the World, as the president of
the Imperial Academy and respected as the leading scholar in the court,
Xu conscientiously introduced Zhu Xi’s teaching to the Mongols. He
assumed personal responsibility for educating the sons of the Mongol
nobility to become qualified teachers of Confucian Classics. His
erudition and skills in medicine, legal affairs, irrigation, military
science, arithmetic, and astronomy enabled him to be an informed adviser
to the conquest dynasty. He set the tone for the eventual success of the
Confucianization of Yuan bureaucracy. In fact, it was the Yuan court
that first officially adopted the Four Books as the basis of the civil
service examination, a practice that was to be observed until 1905.
Thanks to Xu Heng, Zhu Xi’s teaching prevailed in the Mongol period, but
it was significantly simplified.
The hermit-scholar Liu Yin (1249–93), on the other hand, allegedly
refused Kublai Khan’s summons in order to maintain the dignity of the
Confucian Way. To him education was for self-realization. Loyal to the
Jin culture in which he was reared and faithful to the Confucian Way
that he had learned from the Song masters, Liu Yin rigorously applied
philological methods to classical studies and strongly advocated the
importance of history. Although true to Zhu Xi’s spirit, by taking
seriously the idea of the investigation of things, he put a great deal
of emphasis on the learning of the mind. Liu Yin’s contemporary, Wu
Zheng (1249–1333), further developed the learning of the mind. He fully
acknowledged the contribution of Lu Jiuyuan to the Confucian tradition,
even though as an admirer of Xu Heng he considered himself a follower of
Zhu Xi. Wu assigned himself the challenging task of harmonizing the
difference between Zhu and Lu. As a result, he reoriented Zhu’s balanced
approach to morality and wisdom to accommodate Lu’s existential concern
for self-knowledge. This prepared the way for the revival of Lu’s
learning of the mind in the Ming (1368–1644).
The thought of the first outstanding Ming Confucian scholar, Xue Xuan
(1389–1464), already revealed the turn toward moral subjectivity.
Although a devoted follower of Zhu Xi, Xue’s Records of Reading clearly
shows that he considered the cultivation of “mind and nature” to be
particularly important. Two other early Ming scholars, Wu Yubi
(1391–1469) and Chen Xianzhang (1428–1500), helped to define Confucian
education for those who studied the Classics not simply in preparation
for examinations but as learning of the “body and mind.” They cleared
the way for Wang Yangming (1472–1529), the most influential Confucian
thinker after Zhu Xi.
As a critique of excessive attention to philological details
characteristic of Zhu Xi’s followers, Wang Yangming allied himself with
Lu Jiuyuan’s learning of the mind. He advocated the precept of uniting
thought and action. By focusing on the transformative power of the will,
he inspired a generation of Confucian students to return to the moral
idealism of Mencius. His own personal example of combining teaching with
bureaucratic routine, administrative responsibility, and leadership in
military campaigns demonstrated that he was a man of deeds.
Despite his competence in practical affairs, Wang’s primary concern
was moral education, which he felt had to be grounded in the “original
substance” of the mind. This he later identified as liangzhi (“good
conscience”), by which he meant innate knowledge or a primordial
existential awareness possessed by every human being. He further
suggested that good conscience as the heavenly principle is inherent in
all beings from the highest spiritual forms to grass, wood, bricks, and
stone. Because the universe consists of vital energy informed by good
conscience, it is a dynamic process rather than a static structure.
Human beings can learn to regard heaven and earth and the myriad things
as one body by extending their good conscience to embrace an
ever-expanding network of relationships.
Wang Yangming’s dynamic idealism, as Wing-tsit Chan, the late dean of
Chinese philosophy in North America, characterized it, set the Confucian
agenda for several generations in China. His followers, such as the
communitarian Wang Ji (1498–1583), who devoted his long life to building
a community of the like-minded, and the radical individualist Li Zhi
(1527–1602), who proposed to reduce all human relationships to
friendship, broadened Confucianism to accommodate a variety of
lifestyles.
Among Wang’s critics, Liu Zongzhou (1578–1645) was perhaps the most
brilliant. His Human Schemata (Renpu) offered a rigorous
phenomenological description of human mistakes as a corrective to Wang
Yangming’s moral optimism. Liu’s student Huang Zongxi (1610–95) compiled
a comprehensive biographical history of Ming Confucians based on Liu’s
writings. One of Huang’s contemporaries, Gu Yanwu (1613–82), was also a
critic of Wang Yangming. He excelled in his studies of political
institutions, ancient phonology, and classical philology. While Gu was
well-known in his time and honoured as the patron saint of “evidential
learning” in the 18th century, his contemporary Wang Fuzhi (1619–92) was
discovered 200 years later as one of the most sophisticated original
minds in the history of Confucian thought. His extensive writings on
metaphysics, history, and the Classics made him a thorough critic of
Wang Yangming and his followers.
The Confucian revival » The age of Confucianism: Yi-dynasty Korea,
Tokugawa Japan, and Qing China
Among all the dynasties, Chinese and foreign, the long-lived Yi (Chosŏn)
in Korea (1392–1910) was undoubtedly the most thoroughly Confucianized.
Since the 15th century, when the aristocracy (yangban) defined itself as
the carrier of Confucian values, the penetration of court politics and
elite culture by Confucianism had been unprecedented. Even today, as
manifested in political behaviour, legal practice, ancestral veneration,
genealogy, village schools, and student activism, the vitality of the
Confucian tradition is widely felt in South Korea.
Yi T’oegye (1501–70), the single most important Korean Confucian,
helped shape the character of Yi Confucianism through his creative
interpretation of Zhu Xi’s teaching. Critically aware of the
philosophical turn engineered by Wang Yangming, T’oegye transmitted the
Zhu Xi legacy as a response to the advocates of the learning of the
mind. As a result, he made Yi Confucianism at least as much a true heir
to Song learning as Ming Confucianism was. Indeed, his Discourse on the
Ten Sagely Diagrams, an aid for educating the king, offered a depiction
of all the major concepts in Song learning. His exchange of letters with
Ki Taesŭng (1527–72) in the famous Four-Seven debate, which discussed
the relationship between Mencius’ four basic human
feelings—commiseration, shame, modesty, and right and wrong—and seven
emotions, such as anger and joy, raised the level of Confucian dialogue
to a new height of intellectual sophistication.
In addition, Yi Yulgok’s (1536–84) challenge to T’oegye’s
re-presentation of Zhu Xi’s Confucianism, from the perspective of Zhu’s
thought itself, significantly enriched the repertoire of the learning of
the principle. The leadership of the central government, supported by
the numerous academies set up by aristocratic families and by
institutions such as the community compact system and the village
schools, made the learning of the principle not only a political
ideology but also a common creed in Korea.
In Japan, Zhu Xi’s teaching, as interpreted by T’oegye, was
introduced to Yamazaki Ansai (1618–82). A distinctive feature of
Yamazaki’s thought was his recasting of native Shintōism in Confucian
terminology. The diversity and vitality of Japanese Confucianism was
further evident in the appropriation of Wang Yangming’s dynamic idealism
by the samurai-scholars, notably Kumazawa Banzan (1619–91). It is,
however, in Ogyū Sorai’s (1666–1728) determination to rediscover the
original basis of Confucian teaching by returning to its pre-Confucian
sources that a true exemplification of the independent-mindedness of
Japanese Confucians is found. Indeed, Sorai’s brand of ancient learning
with its particular emphasis on philological exactitude foreshadowed a
similar scholarly movement in China by at least a generation. Although
Tokugawa Japan was never as Confucianized as Yi Korea had been,
virtually every educated person in Japanese society was exposed to the
Four Books by the end of the 17th century.
The Confucianization of Chinese society reached its apex during the
Qing (1644–1911/12) when China was again ruled by a conquest (Manchu)
dynasty. The Qing emperors outshone their counterparts in the Ming in
presenting themselves as exemplars of Confucian kingship. They
transformed Confucian teaching into a political ideology, indeed a
mechanism of control. Jealously guarding their imperial prerogatives as
the ultimate interpreters of Confucian truth, they undermined the
freedom of scholars to transmit the Confucian Way by imposing harsh
measures, such as literary inquisition. It was Gu Yanwu’s classical
scholarship rather than his insights on political reform that inspired
the 18th-century evidential scholars. Dai Zhen, the most
philosophically-minded philologist among them, couched his brilliant
critique of Song learning in his commentary on “The Meanings of Terms in
the Book of Mencius.” Dai Zhen was one of the scholars appointed by the
Qianlong emperor in 1773 to compile an imperial manuscript library. This
massive scholarly attempt, The Complete Library of the Four Treasures,
is symbolic of the grandiose intent of the Manchu court to give an
account of all the important works of the four branches of learning—the
Classics, history, philosophy, and literature—in Confucian culture. The
project comprised more than 36,000 volumes with comments on about 10,230
titles, employed as many as 15,000 copyists, and took 20 years to
complete. The Qianlong emperor and the scholars around him may have
expressed their cultural heritage in a definitive form, but the
Confucian tradition was yet to encounter its most serious threat.
Modern transformation
At the time of the first Opium War (1839–42) East Asian societies had
been Confucianized for centuries. The continuous growth of Mahayana
Buddhism throughout Asia and the presence of Daoism in China, shamanism
in Korea, and Shintōism in Japan did not undermine the power of
Confucianism in government, education, family rituals, and social
ethics. In fact, Buddhist monks were often messengers of Confucian
values, and the coexistence of Confucianism with Daoism, shamanism, and
Shintōism actually characterized the syncretic East Asian religious
life. The impact of the West, however, so fundamentally challenged the
Confucian roots in East Asia that for some time it was widely debated
whether or not Confucianism could remain a viable tradition in modern
times.
Beginning in the 19th century, Chinese intellectuals’ faith in the
ability of Confucian culture to withstand the impact of the West became
gradually eroded. This loss of faith may be perceived in Lin Zexu’s
(1785–1850) moral indignation against the British, followed by Zeng
Guofan’s (1811–72) pragmatic acceptance of the superiority of Western
technology, Kang Youwei’s (1858–1927) sweeping recommendation for
political reform, and Zhang Zhidong’s (1837–1909) desperate, eclectic
attempt to save the essence of Confucian learning, which, however,
eventually led to the anti-Confucian iconoclasm of the so-called May
Fourth Movement in 1919. The triumph of Marxism-Leninism as the official
ideology of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 relegated Confucian
rhetoric to the background. The modern Chinese intelligentsia, however,
maintained unacknowledged, sometimes unconscious, continuities with the
Confucian tradition at every level of life—behaviour, attitude, belief,
and commitment. Indeed, Confucianism remains an integral part of the
psycho-cultural construct of the contemporary Chinese intellectual as
well as of the Chinese farmer.
The emergence of Japan and other newly industrialized Asian countries
(e.g., South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore) as the most dynamic region of
economic development since World War II has generated much scholarly
interest. Labeled the “Sinitic World in Perspective,” “The Second Case
of Industrial Capitalism,” the “Eastasia Edge,” or “the Challenge of the
Post-Confucian States,” this phenomenon has raised questions about how
the typical East Asian institutions, still suffused with Confucian
values—such as a paternalistic government, an educational system based
on competitive examinations, the family with emphasis on loyalty and
cooperation, and local organizations informed by consensus—have adapted
themselves to the imperatives of modernization.
Some of the most creative and influential intellectuals in
contemporary China have continued to think from Confucian roots. Xiong
Shili’s ontological reflection, Liang Shuming’s cultural analysis, Feng
Youlan’s reconstruction of the learning of the principle, He Lin’s new
interpretation of the learning of the mind, Tang Junyi’s philosophy of
culture, Xu Fuguan’s social criticism, and Mou Zongsan’s moral
metaphysics are noteworthy examples. Although some of the most
articulate intellectuals in the People’s Republic of China criticize
their Confucian heritage as the embodiment of authoritarianism,
bureaucratism, nepotism, conservatism, and male chauvinism, others in
China, Taiwan, Singapore, and North America have imaginatively
established the relevance of Confucian humanism to China’s
modernization. The revival of Confucian studies in South Korea, Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and Singapore has been under way for more than a generation,
though Confucian scholarship in Japan remains unrivaled. Confucian
thinkers in the West, inspired by religious pluralism and liberal
democratic ideas, have begun to explore the possibility of a third epoch
of Confucian humanism. They uphold that its modern transformation, as a
creative response to the challenge of the West, is a continuation of its
classical formulation and its medieval elaboration. Scholars in mainland
China have also begun to explore the possibility of a fruitful
interaction between Confucian humanism and democratic liberalism in a
socialist context.
Tu Weiming
