Ch.1 & Intro
INTRODUCTION
In the process of world modernization, Western rationalism played a crucial role. Modern science and technology, a market economy, division of labor, bureaucracy and management, rule of and by law, democracy, ideas of human rights, and individualism are all inseparable from Western rationality which is deeply rooted in the Western intellectual tradition. A new world view and mode of thinking based on Western rationality, especially that of Enlightenment rationalism, is something that the Chinese too must face in their search for modernity.
The Chinese have their own highly developed and sophisticated world views and mode of thinking characterized by Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist rationality. The Chinese rationality is, however, different from Western rationality in many fundamental ways. When the Chinese during the turn of this century first met the powerful rational world view from the West, the impact upon them was tremendous. An iconoclast movement that developed based on Western rationalism proclaimed the futility of the entire traditional Chinese world view and mode of thinking as long as they were different from Western rationality. This is what we usually call the Chinese Enlightenment that blossomed during the May Fourth Period (1915-1927).[1] There were, however, many other intellectuals who tried to criticize foreign rationality from a traditional perspective, or to develop a dialogue between the traditional and those aspects of Western rationality that they felt they had to accept. Many more Chinese people, while advocating Western rationalism in their consciousness, were strongly influenced by the non-Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment elements that they inevitably retained from their upbringing. The reactions toward, and conflicts with Enlightenment rationalism in the May Fourth period, whether conscious or unconscious, are the subjects of this dissertation.
Contemporary scholars are not unaware of the existence of certain currents of anti-scientism or counter-westernization thought in modern China. But few people have identified the counter-Enlightenment origin of modern Chinese conservatism, and even fewer realize the scale and depth of the conflicts caused by the meeting of two fundamentally different kinds of world views and modes of thinking. The significance and influence of the Chinese counter-Enlightenment have been seriously neglected probably mainly because modern observers have not recognized the profundity, richness, and vitality of the traditional Chinese world view and modes of thinking, and treated them simply as outdated and destined-to-disappear thought. Without a sound knowledge of these aspects of the Chinese traditions, however, it is impossible to recognize the durability and far-reaching impact of the non-Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment mentality in modern Chinese history. Hence, this study chooses to focus on in-depth analyses of the most representative thinkers instead of taking a general survey of the very popular counter-Enlightenment phenomena in the May Fourth period, the formative stage of the modern Chinese mind.
We focus on the May Fourth period not only because the modern Chinese mind shaped in this formative stage has, to a great extent, decided the fate of modern China, but also because it was not until this period that the Chinese counter-Enlightenment began to have conscious existence. The late-Ch'ing thinkers also had many counter-Enlightenment elements in their minds. Nevertheless, in their earnestness to learn from the West and their ignorance of the full implications of a new rational world view, there was no conscious counter-Enlightenment philosophical system.[2] Modern Chinese counter-Enlightenment thought matured only when scientism and Enlightenment rationalism began to invade the very core of the Chinese world view, and only when the problems of a mechanized, capitalized world had revealed themselves to the Chinese through the First World War.
The popularity of the Counter-Enlightenment thought in and after the May Fourth Period (1915-1927) is an important phenomenon in modern Chinese history. Nevertheless, it is seldom studied or even mentioned. To illustrate the popularity of the Counter-Enlightenment thought in this period, let us quote from two famous contemporaries. It is well-known that Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Chang Chun-mai, and Liang Shu-ming's criticisms of scientism were very popular after 1920, but many scholars thought that after the debate on science and views of life in 1923, the scientific school had "won the debate."[3] Nevertheless, in 1927, Hu Shih wrote:
In recent years, scholars in our country have a strong tendency to follow Lu-Wang Neo-Confucianism. Some advocate "inner life," some elevate the "philosophy of moral consciousness (liang-chih)," some promote Yogacara Buddhism, some interpret the Confucian jen as intuition, and some champion "philosophy of feeling." Eucken and Bergson become supporters of the Lu-Wang school. . . . For those who care about the future of Chinese thought, we are now confronting a turning point, and must make a decision.[4]
To Hu Shih, this decision meant the adoption of Western scientific methods, and the continuation of the "positivist" attitude of Chu Hsi and Ch'ing textual studies, which were challenged by contemporary counter-Enlightenment thought. After Hu Shih, the famous Marxist Ai Ssu-ch'i wrote in 1933:
The [science and philosophy (views) of life] debate concluded with Mr. Wu Chih-hui's "dark" cosmology and view of life, and it seems that science has won. In fact, the scientific view of life is still completely dark, it can not suppress the fierce growth of metaphysicians. . . . The study of Indian philosophy, Taoism, and Confucianism has dominated. Tagore was invited to China. People like [Buddhist] T'ang Ta-yuan and Abbot T'ai-hsu were celebrated. . . . End of the century European philosophers, from Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Eucken, Bergson, to Dilthey, all took the study of man as central to philosophical questions.[5]
Hu and Ai's worries confirm the strength of the Chinese Counter-Enlightenment in and after the May Fourth period. As they have noticed, this powerful current was supported by powerful Chinese, Indian, and Western sources. But they did not realize that even the "progressive" pragmatism and Marxism that they promoted could not escape the influence from the counter-Enlightenment thought, and the ever-present traditional world view and mode of thinking.
The Chinese Counter-Enlightenment is a very complex phenomenon that contained many different schools and was influenced by various Eastern and Western sources.
Of the different schools, this study will focus primarily on the "Philosophy of Life" (Sheng-sheng ssu-hsiang) School because it was the most influential school of counter-Enlightenment thought, and also because it best represents the conflicts between Western rationalism and the traditional Chinese mind. At the same time, I will also discuss the more westernized revolutionary romanticism to provide a contrast to the Philosophy of Life school.[6] The two schools, being closely related, formed the two most influential trends of the Chinese counter-Enlightenment.
This dissertation will begin with a brief examination of some of the major contemporary theories about the relations between rationalism, modernity, and postmodernity. I will then give an overview of what Western rationalism, counter-Enlightenment, and the Philosophy of Life meant in China's pursuit of modernity. Definitions of broad terms like the Philosophy of Life, Enlightenment rationalism, counter-Enlightenment, and world views of being or becoming will also be provided in the first chapter.
To deepen our understanding of the often profound and very complex content of the Counter-Enlightenment Philosophy of Life, I will then concentrate predominately on a close analysis of the two most important archetypes of the Philosophy of Life in the formative stages of modern Chinese Philosophy of Life -- Liang Shu-ming's Neo-Confucian Philosophy of Life and Chang Chun-mai's Neo-Romantic Philosophy of Life in the May-Fourth period. With the analysis of these two archetypes, most of the basic characteristics and causes of Chinese Philosophy of Life, Counter-Enlightenment, and New Confucianism should become clear.
From our perspective, Liang Shu-ming is much more important than is Chan Chun-mai and thus deserves the most attention in this dissertation. Liang is not only the real founder of the philosophical system of modern Chinese New Confucianism, and one of the major founders of Chinese New Humanism and Modern Chinese Cultural Conservatism, but is also a truly original thinker, and a true heir of the Chinese intellectual tradition. Liang furthermore conveyed the essence of Confucian tradition more authentically both through his thought and action than did later New Confucians. Since Liang was deeply immersed in Buddhist, Taoist, Chinese medical, and Confucian traditions, an analysis of him clearly demonstrates the conflicts between the Chinese tradition and a rationalized new world view.
Chang's effort to combine German Idealism and Bergsonism with Confucianism was very influential in the history of modern Chinese New Confucianism and New Humanism. Although this approach creates mach confusion and a great many problems, Chang's Neo-Romantic Philosophy of Life was nevertheless a significant part of the counter-Enlightenment thought during the May-Fourth period.
The last chapter will be devoted to counter-Enlightenment currents in pro-Enlightenment, anti-traditionalist, and so-called "scientific" schools. In this chapter we will see how counter-Enlightenment elements in Chinese traditions, combined with Western Counter-Enlightenment thought, have strongly influenced these so-called pro-Enlightenment thinkers. I will try to illustrate how Pragmatism, Marxism, Revolutionary Romanticism, and New Confucianism, the most influential schools in modern China, actually shared many of the same modes of thinking, world views, and historical background. Liang Shu-ming and Mao Tse-tung, for example, were very similar in their devotion to a voluntarist, activist, and dynamic world view of becoming, and their emphasis on the meaning of an essential life-drive. Liang, however, believed in the Confucian teaching of harmony, while Mao believed in Marxist "universal contradiction and struggle." This fundamental discrepancy in their often very similar reforming plans does make a great difference.
In general, this study attempts to make the following points: First, the Chinese Counter-Enlightenment was deeply rooted in the counter-Enlightenment and non-Enlightenment elements in Chinese tradition, and was a natural result of the meeting of the very different Chinese and Western world views and modes of thinking. Second, the Chinese Philosophy of Life and romanticism have been products of the revolutionary situation in China since the late-Ch'ing. It has been strongly influenced by the moral fundamentalism, dynamic evolutionism, and anarchism of the late-Ch'ing thinkers. Third, the Chinese counter-Enlightenment was a reaction toward a modern world view based on Enlightenment rationalism, and was encouraged by many post-Enlightenment Western philosophies which, standing at a turning period in Western intellectual history, strongly criticized both Greek and Enlightenment rationalism. Fourth, the Chinese counter-Enlightenment was the part of the Chinese intellectuals' collective effort to search eagerly for a new Tao, the ultimate and all-embracing principle, in an chaotic age. Fifth, the search for the ultimate principle has a stronger emotional attraction to the Chinese than any well-studied, rational, but usually too sophisticated, plan. The hasty search for the Tao, while mingled with the imported idealism, was unfortunately a major cause of the many romanic revolutionary movements in modern China.
It is my hope that by inquiring into the richness, depth, popularity, and vitality of this counter-Enlightenment thought in the May Fourth period, this research can deepen our understanding of the May Fourth Period --the so-called Chinese Enlightenment. Moreover, since Enlightenment rationality is, as widely believed by many scholars, a most essential element of modernity, this study also seeks to indicate and clarify some of the basic challenges and problems that Chinese faced in their search for a modern China.
CHAPTER ONE
RATIONALISM, MODERNITY, AND CHINESE COUNTER-ENLIGHTENMENT
Rationalism and China's Search for Modernity
A. Rationalism and Modernity
The most important issue in modern Chinese history is the struggle for modernization. Although not completely without success, this process is full of painful frustrations for the Chinese. In order to understand and evaluate this period of history, we need a solid understanding of modernity.
Today, most scholars agree that in all modernized societies, "Occidental Rationalism," especially that of Enlightenment rationality, plays a crucial role. The Weberian formulation of the process of modernization as a process of rationalization remains the most illuminating, inclusive, and widely accepted explanation.[7] Although it is not the only way to interpret the whole process of modernization in any given society, it is crucial that we look into the question of modernization from this perspective.
However, there have also been some important modifications and criticisms of this theory. The modernization theory of the fifties and after maintains that the established social institutions in modern society have obtained their autonomy and declared their independence from their original source, Occidental Rationalism. In doing so, this theory universalizes the process and modes of modernization, gives modernity a new and self-defined identity, and severs it from its historical origins.[8] This result is well described by Arnold Gehlen's words: "the premises of the Enlightenment are dead; only their consequences continue on."[9] These consequences are interpreted by many as the only and necessary models for all societies, despite their varying traditions.
Post-Modernists from Nietzsche, Heidegger, to Foucault, however, proclaim that in the disenchanted modern and post-modern society, reason has subordinated itself to the monstrous social institutions forged by the "will-to-instrumental-mastery" that always underlies the process of modernization.[10] To Foucault and many other Post-Modernists, all social structures, which privilege some while condemning others for non-conformity, are in fact "discourses of power." The fulfillment of modernization, unavoidably, "pulls away the veil of reason from before the sheer will to power." In post-modern society, the primordial and anarchist will-to-power will eventually shatter the "iron cage" of the modern society once forged by its subordinate tool: reason.[11]
According to the above views, Occidental rationalism as defined by Weber lost its significance after the fulfillment of its historical mission, and was subjected to either the "unchecked dynamism of societal modernization," or the anarchist and subversive will to power.[12] Both these views have some grounding. However, even in their modifications and criticisms of Weber's theory of rationalization, we still find keep Weber's major themes: the subjugation of purposive rationality to instrumental rationality, disenchantment and the loss of meaning, and the social objectification of rational structure in modern society. Although these controversies involve a very different understandings of the essence of reason, the many facets of rationality, and the nature and meaning of modern institutions, rationalism clearly remains central to their interpretations of modernity, if not to a post-modernity that is destined to chaos. They are, after all, results of reflections on the Western experience.
If we consider the experience of non-Western societies, the situation is somewhat different. Western rationalism still plays an important role in the modernization of non-Western cultures, but it is less crucial. Japan's modernization, for example, largely relied on a combination of indigenous feudal ethics and Western rationalism. Capitalism and other modern social institutions in Japan have not caused the collapse of traditional Japanese life style and social relationships. Instead, they build and rely upon Japan's ethical traditions. From a Western point of view, even today's Japan, with its feudal patterns of behavior and organizations, is not a fully rationalized land. But no one can deny that Japan's experience is highly successful. In other words, Japan's modernization comes from a successful dialogue between Western rationalism and Japan's indigenous traditions. China's continuous revolution and ruthless rupture with her traditions, in comparison, have been much more painful and fruitless. The study of the counter-Enlightenment in China, therefore, should not simply be a study of an important obstacle of China's modernization, or a criticism of modernity and rationalism. It also should be a search for a real dialogue between Western and Chinese cultures.[13]
B. Western Rationalism in China
Before we venture into our study, we have to further clarify the meaning of Western rationalism, and the best way to do this is to begin with Weber. The term rationalization in Weber's system has very complex implications that can only be briefly discussed here.[14] It refers mainly to the process of intellectualization, disenchantment, and secularization in Europe. This process, in Weber's system, is primarily related to two different kinds of rationalities in Western traditions--Greek and, ironically, Protestant rationalism. In Weber's theory, Protestant rationalism has achieved the highest "level of rationalization" as a religion in that it has "divested itself of magic" most completely, and that it has most "systematically unified the relation between God the world and therewith its own ethical relationship to the world." That is, with an ultimate and highly purified "myth," Protestantism helps to disenchant the world.[15] Since the publication of Weber's epoch-making book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, the relations between Christian rationality and modernity have become one of the most interesting topics of our time. Historically, Christian, especially Protestant, rationality has been proven by Max Weber and many of his successors to be crucial, or at least conducive to the rise of capitalism, modern science, the modern judicial system, and democracy.[16] Nevertheless, the rise of many capitalist and industrialized countries in East Asia has also proven Christian rationality not to be a necessary condition for the creation of a modern economy. After the establishment of the authority of science in cosmology and many other fields, moreover, the Christian belief in the existence of cosmological rationality, and the zeal to inquire into them so as to glorify God, also ceased to be a necessary condition in the advancement of modern science. In terms of modern political and legal systems, Judeo-Christian rationality did serve as a pivotal element in most of the stable democracies and their judicial systems.[17] Nonetheless, democracy has its origin in Greece, and today's main-stream political thought still holds that democratic rationality can be universally accepted. With democratic systems gradually taking root in non-Christian countries like Japan, Taiwan, and India, we have reason to believe that Christianity is not an indispensable condition to democracy. Other ethical rationalities might also serve the same purpose.[18]
In their efforts to search for modernity, from the beginning, the Chinese paid great attention to the legacies of Greek rationalism, but little attention to Catholicism or Protestantism. In fact, influenced by Enlightenment rationality, there was a large scale anti-religious movement based on scientism in early Republican China. A study of rationalism and the Chinese mind will find itself surrounded by such discussions as on those logic, science, scientific-technological rationalism, systems of knowledge, truth, calculative reason, ideas, forms, substance, being, alienation, reification, utilitarianism etc. --what we may roughly call reflections on Greek and Enlightenment rationalism. This fact alone shows that what Weber searched for as "having universal significance and value" in his study of universal history should lie more in Greek rationalism than in Protestant rationalism.[19]
At this point, we should consider the question of whether these discussions in China were directed to Greek rationalism or to Enlightenment rationalism. Enlightenment rationalism is no doubt an offspring of the Greek tradition.[20] But there are also many fundamental differences between the ancient and the modern views of reason. The modern emphasis on human subjectivity and the rise of a mechanistic world view encourage the separation of an inner and an external world, and broaden the rift between instrumental and value rationality (Wertrationalitat). The modern view has a more subjective and also more disengaged sense of reason.[21] This modern rationality raises individuals' status in the world, and helps human beings to dominate the external world, but it also contributes to the problems of alienation and reification. The question of modernity is much more directly related to Enlightenment rationalism, on which the modern world order is built, than it is to Greek rationalism.[22] As we will show in this dissertation, when the Chinese reflected on their status in a modern world, they inevitably had to confront Enlightenment rationalism directly, despite the fact that they also paid great attention to Greek rationalism.
What is Enlightenment rationalism? It is mainly a belief in the universality of natural laws and reason, and a belief in man's ability to use reason to comprehend these laws. To the Enlightenment thinkers, natural laws existed in physical, biological, economic, judicial, ethical, political, religious, psychological, artistic, literary and all the other natural and social domains. Eighteenth-century people's optimism lay mainly in their belief that with the awakening of reason, man could eventually perceive these laws, and, subsequently fully control his own fate. With a strong belief in reason, they also proclaimed that any belief that cannot be confirmed by reason is false, and should be abolished. This iconoclastic fervor is directly linked to the passion to build a brave new rational world.
A belief in the fundamental "rationality" and regularity of the world is not alien to the Chinese. While the archenemies of the European philosophes were superstition, myth, and religion, the belief in supernatural power in China has been minimized since antiquity. In fact, indigenous Chinese rationalism inspired and encouraged many Enlightenment thinkers in science, ethics, economics, judicial system, politics, and natural religion. More than two thousand years ago, the pre-Ch'in Taoist and Confucian thinkers pointed out the prevalent rationality of the world so as to rule out supernatural interpretations. In the third century, the philosopher Wang Pi further summarized this world view by asserting that "nothing comes unexplainably, there must be a li (reason) for it." The Sung-Ming Neo-Confucians also distinguished themselves by their belief in the universal li, both natural and ethical. China's rationalism is perhaps the most important reason that modern Chinese, unlike other religion-oriented people, can easily accept a naturalistic and rationalized modern Western world view. However, if we inquire more deeply into this matter, we will find that what distinguishes the Chinese from Western philosophers is not the conviction in the existence of the rationality of the world, but in their views of what kind of rationality it is.[23]
During the turn of this century, Chinese thinkers were astonished by the various achievements of the West. The huge contrast between China and the West made them very sensitive to the causes of these differences. In terms of scholarship, what struck people the most at that time were Western mathematics, natural science, and the underlying systems formal logic.[24] Yen Fu, the most distinguished introducer of Western learning at that time, summarized his life-long research by writing: "Western logic is . . . the canon of all canons of study, and the learning of all learning."[25] Wang Kuo-wei, Chang T'ai-yen, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Hu Shih, Chen Ta-ch'i, Liang Shu-ming, and many other Chinese thinkers also pointed out that there are fundamental differences between Chinese and Western modes of thinking that accounted for a great many basic differences between Chinese and Western cultures.
In that period, when the Chinese talked of the characteristics of Western thinking, they were referring to formal logic and science. It is well-known that since the late-Ch'ing period, science and democracy has received the greatest attention from the Chinese. While many people still questioned the rationality and feasibility of democracy, few challenged Western science. Modern science has both rational and empirical elements. The Chinese have always been sensitive to the empirical. Nevertheless, they were not used to engaging in logical and systematic processes of theory-building, rational analysis of the essence and categories of things, and rationally controlled experiments. One of the basic reasons that modern science did not develop in China is that the Chinese neglected the pursuit of formal logic and mathematical methods of reasoning, the very attributes that made Greek science what it was.[26]
Some of the most brilliant scholars at that time already sensed these problems, and they strongly advocated the introduction of Western positivist and logical thinking. This new thinking then became the main stream ideal of modern Chinese thought. Among the works advocating the new thinking, Yen Fu's translation of John S. Mill's A System of Logic, and Hu Shih's introduction of Dewey's Instrumentalism and pragmatic logic were the most influential. Since their publication, the study of comparative and Western logic, philosophy of science, and various kinds of methodologies have consistently been popular. Positivists like Chang Shih-chao, T'u Hsiao-shih, Ch'en Ta-ch'i, Chang Shen-fu, Chin Yueh-lin, and Yin Hai-kuang played very important roles in modern Chinese intellectual history. In addition, Marxist and Hegelian dialectical logic -- a revolt against formal logic -- was also welcomed by many once it assumed the title of the most progressive "Western logic," and when its affinity to traditional Chinese dialectical thinking was felt. In the meantime, stimulated by the introduction of Western logic, the study of the history and modes of traditional Chinese "logic" and Indian logic also became popular. Although few scholars really understood the distinctions and meanings of so many different kinds of Western and Oriental modes of thinking, "logic" was a lofty word in China. Western logic, especially formal and dialectical logic, is revered in China and has been a required school course from the May Fourth era till now. Even today, in mainland China, the study of the philosophy of science and all kinds of methodologies remains extraordinarily popular.
Modern Chinese scholars also venerate Western natural science and the Western system of knowledge. Confucianism is known for its emphasis on "knowledge" and education. Nonetheless, Confucian ideas of "knowledge" (chih, which is different from chih-shih, a translation of the Western idea of knowledge) are very different from those of the West not only in that Confucian knowledge focuses on ethics, but also because the epistemological and metaphysical assumptions behind it are completely different from those of the West. Since the days of Plato, Western philosophers have defined knowledge as something completely certain and precise. Sense and subjective knowledge are imprecise and erring. True knowledge must be infallible, perfect, absolute, and well-defined; therefore, only reason can assure us of it. Greek philosophers also saw true knowledge as the knowledge of the Universals, the ideal forms, and the necessary connections between the forms. Systematized knowledge, or "science" in its original meaning is the knowledge of the Forms and the laws that connect them. Otherwise, it is only knowledge of individual facts. This is what scientific knowledge really means in the west, and it is a concept completely foreign to the Chinese.[27]
The Chinese paid attention not only to logic and science, but to the influence of Western rationalism as a whole. Enlightenment rationalism, together with the system of knowledge developed under its principles, revolutionized both the value system and social structures of the societies and people that accept its tenets. Since the turn of this century, more and more Chinese intellectuals began to learn that the distinction of the modern West lies in its various systems of knowledge, reverence for natural and civil laws, efficiency of organization, and ideas associated with a democratic society.[28] Some of the best Chinese thinkers also found that all these factors originated, or at least were inseparable from, the "rational and scientific attitudes" of the West. Those features that made the modern West "superior" to other peoples only manifested different facets of the Western mode of thinking. Without a sound understanding of the nature of the Western mode of thinking, it was impossible to make good use of Western institutions. To those thinkers, the most significant things China lacked were logical and rational attitudes, a critical spirit, and the desire to obtain true knowledge. Without these, there was no way for the Chinese people to change their traditional ways of thinking so that they could "rationalize" China and solve its variety of internal and external problems.
Here I should remind the contemporary reader that with more than two centuries of studies and reflections, it has become natural for contemporary Westerners to use terms such as Enlightenment, rationalism, Romanticism, and anti-rationalism to generalize the enormously complex experience in the process of modernization. However, to the Chinese at the turn of this century, these terms and generalizations were basically unknown. They had to rely on their acumen and fragments of information about the West to determine what modernity meant to China. It was a remarkable achievement for some brilliant Chinese to create a sensible picture of the whole, and render it with a systematic interpretation that is still valuable today. This study, therefore, will investigate not only the meaning of their reflections but also the historical conditions that made these reflections possible.[29]
Chinese Counter-Enlightenment and Its Origins
A. Counter-Enlightenment in China
The process of rationalization in modern China was not very successful. We have seen some of the largest scale romantic and revolutionary movements in human history. But we did not see the emergence of a rationalized and pluralized society. Division of labor, rational employment and the buildup of capital and other resources in the economy; respect for private property and contracts, rule of and by law; disinterested devotion to the pursuit of ultimate truth, the pursuit of knowledge purely for knowledge's sake, systematic and analytical scholarship; esteem for individuality, human rights and privacy, rational exchange and settlement of different opinions and political interests; rational planning, execution, and reviewing -- none of these Enlightenment aspects of rationality and behavior and patterns really took root in mainland China. China did copy many bulky and bureaucratic social institutions from the Soviet Union after 1950, but even those systems worked much less according to the rules than did their archetypes in Soviet Union, itself a peripheral and foreign society as contrasted with the modernized West. This system of social engineering was also greatly damaged first during the Cultural Revolution, another politicized Romantic movement, and then by today's dissolution of the socialist order. China, especially in Taiwan, owns an educational system that has created many outstanding scientists. Nonetheless, anyone who understands that system knows that there is still a dearth in the areas of professionalism, unconditional zeal for knowledge and truth, a critical spirit, and the persistent and logical pursuit into the most fundamental realms. Both Taiwan and, especially, Mainland China are not "rationalist societies" by Western standards.
A famous argument made by Li Tse-ho, and supported by Vera Schwarcz, about the failure of Enlightenment in modern China is that China's external and urgent political needs took priority over the personal need for freedom, human rights, and democracy.[30] Besides these external causes, however, there were also many internal and intellectual factors that thwarted the development of Enlightenment rationality in China. In fact, the attitude of "taking political priorities first" was also a reflection of disregard for the universals and Enlightenment rationality. The study of the Chinese counter-Enlightenment can greatly increase our knowledge of the frustration of Enlightenment and rationalization in China. Without a satisfactory understanding of the Chinese counter-Enlightenment, no one can have an adequate knowledge of what modernity in China would be.
Unfortunately, the Counter-Enlightenment in modern China is a topic that has not been effectively studied. Scholars have pointed out scattered criticisms toward several specific aspects of Enlightenment ideals in China, but they do not see these criticisms as related parts of a bigger Chinese counter-Enlightenment. Even less have scholars inquired into the ways in which the many counter-Enlightenment elements in Chinese tradition, rooted in the Chinese language, mode of thinking, world view, and behavioral patterns, have influenced the modern Chinese counter-Enlightenment.
Granted, we do have Leo Lee's excellent study of the Romantic pathos of the May-Fourth writers. This study illustrates many of the revolutionary and romantic aspects of the psychological, literary, and social background of the counter-Enlightenment in China. It also gives a thorough account of the Chinese romantics' criticism of reason in the realms of literature and art. Nevertheless, the Romantic literary movement in China is much more a passionate and subjective outburst of a revolutionary generation, than a conscious and responsible reflection on the meaning of Enlightenment. Although writers in this movement worshiped passion and emotion and neglected or criticized reason in their artistic and personal lives, they had little intention of criticizing Enlightenment rationality.[31] They romanticized science and Enlightenment just as they romanticized almost everything else from the West. These Romantic writers were imitators of Western Romantics and heirs of the Chinese literati tradition (wen-jen), but were by no means real critics of the French Enlightenment. Despite their similarity in appearance, we should not mistake this Chinese Romantic Movement as a counterpart of the German Romanticism.
Professor Lee's analysis of Chinese Romantics has one shortcoming: he does not pay enough attention to the relationship between the Romantic pathos and the counter-Enlightenment elements in Chinese traditions. He does examine the Chinese literati tradition closely, but he does not indicate how the traditional world views and modes of thinking, and late-Ch'ing dynamic and anarchist thought influenced these writers. He asserts, insightfully, that the major distinction between modern Chinese Romanticism and the Chinese sentimental tradition is "a marked and increasing degree of dynamism," which, he suggests, "is primarily the legacy of nineteenth century European Romanticism."[32] Nevertheless, we may argue that this dynamism is also a natural outcry of people in a revolutionary age that began in the late-Ch'ing period. Moreover, this dynamism is also a result of a grand transformation of the Taoist and Buddhist world views of becoming and Confucian fundamentalism. This transformation was first and most explicitly expressed in K'ang Yu-wei's "Book of the Great Equality" (Ta-t'ung shu) and T'an Ssu-t'ung's "Learning of Universal Compassion" (Jen-hsueh), and was then followed, consciously or unconsciously, by later generations.[33] Although the Chinese Romantics were not real counter-Enlightenment writers, they did share the same counter-Enlightenment world views, modes of thinking, behavior patterns, and historical background as those serious counter-Enlightenment thinkers. This study of the latter should significantly improve our understanding of the former.[34]
A number of general comments on The Chinese counter-Enlightenment and Chinese conservatives were made by Guy Alitto. In his respected study of Liang Shu-ming, and of world cultural conservatives(Wen-hua shou-chen chu-i lun), Alitto sees the Chinese counter-Enlightenment mainly as a branch of world counter-Enlightenment and anti-rationalism. This assertion contains much truth. Nevertheless, he fails to indicate the particular origins, characteristics, and meaning of the counter-Enlightenment in modern Chinese history. In this study, we try not only to point out the universality of world conservatism as a protest toward modernity, but also to illustrate the particularity of The Chinese counter-Enlightenment--Philosophy of Life. Moreover, Alitto's study treats the counter-Enlightenment in China as a general cultural phenomenon without giving it adequate analysis. It appears, then, that he did not realize the complexity, significance, and depth of this thought. Certainly, he did not penetrate into the core of the Chinese counter-Enlightenment.[35]
The existing criticism toward Enlightenment rationality during the May-Fourth period is not taken seriously by most scholars. People tend to think that because the May-Fourth generation did not know much about the West, their reflections, though historically important, were not truly valuable. Such an assumption is wrong because, since the May-Fourth generation came from a traditional society, they were extraordinarily sensitive toward the basic differences between China and the West. The traditional high culture also offered her true heirs an invaluable academic language and a matured world view from which to examine other civilizations. The fact is that during the height of the worship of Enlightenment rationalism in the New Culture Movement, a grand and influential counter-Enlightenment philosophical system was formed by the founder of modern New Confucianism, Liang Shu-ming. In Liang's system, we can find many inspiring comparisons of the basic differences between Chinese and Western cultures, and the effort to develop a dialogue between them. Liang did make use of Western philosophy to support his theory, but his system is deeply rooted in Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist traditions. This system is far more valuable than the many simplistic Chinese imitations of Western philosophy, or distorted interpretations of Chinese culture in modern Chinese intellectual history.[36]
In China's eager search for modernity, counter-Enlightenment is largely neglected or rejected by native Chinese scholars. As a natural result, the huge and often unconscious influence of counter-Enlightenment mentality, which is deeply rooted in Chinese traditions, is either unnoticed, or misunderstood as poison from "feudal remains" (feng-chien ts'an-yu). Having underestimated the potential strength of the counter-Enlightenment, people have not been able to understand what the modernization in China should mean. Although counter-Enlightenment mentality did hamper the modernization of China to a certain extent, it is not, in essence, a negative movement. On the contrary, it even at its outset had many positive goals and very rich meanings. Therefore, although it has been suppressed for the sake of modernization of China, it will not yield easily to Enlightenment rationality. In fact, we cannot imagine a sensible future for China without counter-Enlightenment thought, just as we cannot imagine a modern West without Romanticism.[37]
B. Being, Becoming, Modernity, Postmodernity, and Chinese World View
The Modern Chinese counter-Enlightenment formally started when Chinese thinkers like Liang Ch'i-chao, Yen Fu, Liang Shu-ming, and Chang Chun-mai, shaken by the terrors in the First World War, began to reflect on the problems caused by the "Western mechanistic civilization" and its overemphasis on the omnipotence of science and reason.[38] With their world views rooted in Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, and with an improved understanding of the West, these thinkers came to realize that the ideas of both reason and science have their limits, and that the ideal of science had not become a reality in modern Western disciplines. There is uncertainty in the natural sciences, not to mention in social and humanistic studies. In order to avoid blind worship of science and the existing systems of knowledge, they stressed the importance of inquiry into the nature and limits of science and reason. At the same time, what they criticized the most was the cruelty and loss of meaning in a mechanistic world view. Utilitarianism, materialism, alienation and reification in a capitalized and rationalized society were also the common targets of their criticism.
They easily found similar criticisms in Western writings to support their views. With the decline of Newtonian, deterministic and mechanistic cosmology, and the rise of an evolutionary, organismic, and changing world view in the late nineteenth century, Western intellectuals were revolting against their Greek and Enlightenment traditions. Darwin, Spencer, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bergson, Rudolf Eucken, Dewey, William James, and, for later Chinese thinkers, Hegel, Whitehead, Heidegger and others became speakers for a new world view in China. Through these Western thinkers, and aided by their knowledge of traditional the Chinese world view, eminent Chinese thinkers found that many of the metaphysical and epistemological foundations of the Greek ideal of the Universals were questioned in post-Enlightenment West. The most crucial part of this criticism is the rise of a world view of becoming as opposed to the traditional world view of being. Since the "metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions" of the Chinese ways of thinking, in contrast to the Greek, have put more emphasis on time and change than on form and substance, many felt it would not be wise to discard Chinese epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical traditions that have long dealt with problems in a world view of change.
Western thinkers since Charles Baudelaire defined one of the basic properties of modernity as a new consciousness of time.[39] Nietzsche, father of all post-modern thinkers, emphasized a new world view of Becoming.[40] Reflections on being and Becoming are central to the questions of modernity and postmodernity. To understand the Chinese counter-Enlightenment, we also need to inquire into these two concepts. As we know, traditional Western rationalism is deeply rooted in the Greek, and especially the Platonic world view. Chinese traditional thought, however, is much more compatible with the thought of those modern philosophers who emphasize becoming and the cosmic process, than with the traditional Western thinkers who search for the abiding rationality of the world in a substantial realm. The traditional Greek world view was inherited by medieval thinkers and most modern Western intellectuals before the turn of this century, and became the axis of modern Western culture.[41] However, the belief in rationality and substance has gradually declined along with the rise of a world view of becoming. The shift from a world view of being to a world view of becoming has been seen as the single most important phenomenon in modern Western intellectual history.[42] This basic change, seen as a fundamental revolt against the great Greek tradition, became the focus of attention for late nineteenth and early twentieth century philosophers like Nietzsche, Dewey, Whitehead, Heidegger, Bergson, and Russell. It was also a topic repeatedly explored by distinguished intellectual historians like Carl Becker, R. G. Collingwood, and Franklin Baumer.[43]
This transformation was not an eruption of the late nineteenth century. Numerous elements before that period contributed to its formation. Hegelianism, geographical and biological evolutionary theories, new theories of magnetic and electronic waves and fields, the theory of relativity, quantum theory, Existentialism, Pragmatism, Voluntarism, Vitalism, and Life Philosophy are but some of the most important factors. On the other hand, the fast pace of economic growth, of social and political change, and the outbreak of the First World War which destroyed the illusion of a rational and progressive world, also greatly encouraged this new world view.
It is interesting to notice that a firm belief of the Enlightenment in being brought the fastest social changes in human history; while in China and India, as a sharp contrast, the social structures were relatively stable, but people had a world view of becoming since antiquity. The restless pursuit of the ultimate truth of being since Greek times causes a great deal of tension in the Western mind. This tension is a powerful drive or spiritual leverage to change this world.
In comparison, the Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian acceptance of change as essential to the cosmic order has greatly reduced this tension. From the perspective of Ch'an (the original form of Japanese Zen), Taoism, Five Elements School, and the I Ching, the highest virtue is to perceive and follow the ever-changing and ever-present cosmic process (ta-hua). The prerequisite of this, especially to adherents of Ch'an and Taoism, is to try never to interfere or conceptualize the cosmic wisdom of existence itself with man's limited reasoning and knowing capacities (ssu-chih).[44] To the Chinese, Tao or Ch'an, as an ultimate guidance in this complex world of becoming, is beyond words, or, to put it in another way, cannot be reached through logos.[45]
This is not to say that the Chinese have an inclination to disregard all the rules, words, and regularities. On the contrary, it is well known that Confucianism is characterized by all kinds of requirements about the proprieties (li), and by emphasis on knowledge and proper usage of names and titles (cheng-ming). Nevertheless, the basis of all the proprieties, ethical knowledge and regulations is, according to the central teaching of Confucius, jen (true affection, universal compassion, vitality). Jen, as profound and enduring feeling, is beyond words or theory; therefore, Confucians often make an analogy between the true understanding of it and the realization of the indescribable universal Tao.
People can not live in a world in which everything is flux. The Taoists and Confucians believe that Tao, as the ultimate, is unchangeable. Confucians further emphasize that some essential aspects of human nature (hsing, jen) are constant and basic. Hence, the Confucian and Taoist ideal, is to grasp the ultimate and the essential so as to cope most effectively with this complex world of becoming. As for the "secondary issues and qualities," they tend to handle them with a situational, holistic, and dialectical logic. Lacking the Platonic ideas of substance and form, and the Greek and Christian idea of the Great Chain of Being, the Chinese pay comparatively less attention to the essence or unchangeable characteristics of each category, class, or form. The introduction of Buddhism, with its primordial emphasis on becoming, further intensifies this tendency. Neo-Confucianism's emphasis on li (rationality), is a revolt against a Buddhist world of becoming. Nevertheless, even Neo-Confucianism has been greatly influenced by its enemy's world view of becoming, and focuses on basic universal principles instead of on secondary categories.
The hard-to-describe and hard-to-achieve ancient teachings of the ultimate are also hard to challenge. Whenever the Chinese found themselves in trouble, they tend to criticize themselves for not realizing or following the ultimate Tao. On the other hand, in times of peace and relative prosperity, the pressure from objective social structures and requirements, which in no way compares to what we endure in a rationalized world today, could be soothed by the liberty or consolation one enjoyed from an intimate and personal understanding of the all-inclusive wisdom of Tao. In comparison to Western intellectuals, traditional Chinese men of letters did not feel much need for fundamental cultural changes. Moral tension and the drive to change the world did exist, but they were neither revolutionary nor ordained. Without fixed and well-defined ideas of an Ultimate Being, be it God or the Good, one's destiny is much freer. Therefore, there is also less need to challenge the ultimate, or the established notions of it. This logic also applies to one's distinct knowledge of beings. Thus a relatively stable world view is formed.
Nevertheless, this stable cultural structure, with its more than two thousand years of history, was forced to change with the invasion of the West. When thousands of years of confidence in traditional Tao is shaken, a radical outcome is expected. In this process, the traditional world view of becoming also helped to expedite this change. During the late-Ch'ing period, while confronting enormous pressure from the West, the traditional distinction between Tao and the secondary issues easily reconstructed itself in the famous "Chinese learning as the essence and Western learning as utilities" formula. This is a reformist formula aimed at retaining the central parts of the tradition and at grasping something dependable in an extremely turbulent and changing age. Although this formula was discarded by later revolutionaries, the mode of thinking associated with it was not. Both reformers and revolutionaries since the late Ch'ing period have tried desperately to return to the most essential principles -- regardless of whether they were Chinese, Western, or Indian -- so as to create a meaningful world, or at least to achieve personal mental balance in the unprecedented world of change. The introduction of Darwin's evolutionary theory in 1898 further promoted the sense of crisis and the urge to change. A host of leading Chinese thinkers were all engulfed in this trend. A world view of becoming, combined with an emphasis on the essential and the ultimate, then became the basic tone of modern Chinese history, and made it a revolutionary age.
Constant wars between different belief systems and parties were declared in this revolutionary age. From the intellectual aspect, one of the most important wars turned out to be the battle between scientism, rationalism and traditional Chinese modes of thinking and world views.[46] In many ways, it has also been a war between the Western rational world view of beings and the traditional world view of becoming. On the surface, scientism and rationalism seem to have won the war as it was fought during and after the May Fourth era. However, the traditional world view of becoming and the pursuit of Tao not only did not perish but also penetrated the enemy camp. As we will see, the most popular scientific schools in China, Pragmatism and Marxism, also carried a world view of becoming. Their popularity is also inseparable from this traditional world view and the traditional passion for the pursuit of Tao. As for the cultural conservatives and the Chinese counter-Enlightenment thinkers, their theories often came directly from the traditional world view of becoming.
Among all Chinese counter-Enlightenment thinkers, I believe Liang Shu-ming to have been the greatest. Others, while influenced by contemporary Chinese and Western sources, also mentioned the importance of the concept of becoming but did not really understand the immense implications of a world view of becoming. Liang Shu-ming, not only inquired deeply into the meaning of the principle of becoming but also built upon it to create a grand philosophical system. By doing so, he grasped the essential philosophical problem in modernity and the meeting of East and West: the dialogue between the world views of being and becoming. We will study his thought carefully in this dissertation.[47]
C. Sources and Schools in Chinese Counter-Enlightenment
Although The Chinese counter-Enlightenment was closely related to the contemporary revolutionary philosophy and was by itself a kind of "revolutionary moral fundamentalism," it was still, in comparison to other radical modes of thinking in modern China, relatively conservative.[48] These culturally conservative schools, often closely related to each other, can be divided into New Confucianism, New Buddhism, New Taoism, Bergsonism, and other traditionalism. Besides these intellectuals, we should keep in mind that before 1949, the belief system for most Chinese was and is largely dominated by ideals of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. All of these schools, and especially the latter two, contain rich sources of counter-Enlightenment thought.[49] Let us start from a brief examination of Chinese Buddhism.
Indian Buddhism has a rich philosophical and dialectical tradition. But Chinese Buddhism, represented by Ch'an, T'ien-t'ai, Hua-Yen, Ching-t'u (pure land) denominations, and by independent monasteries (ts'ung-lin), places much more emphasis on self-cultivation and praxis (tzu-hsiu tzu-cheng), and on intuitive or inspired understanding than on words, scholarly study, or logical reasoning. The best known and perhaps the greatest Chinese abbot, Hsuan-chuang of the T'ang dynasty, systematically introduced the Indian Yogacara (Wei-shih) school into China, a school distinguished by meticulous logical analysis of existence. This school, however, was almost completely ignored by later Chinese Buddhists, and was only revived in modern China mainly because of the stimulus from Western science.[50] Ch'ing Buddhism was especially dominated by Ching-t'u and Ch'an, and not a few monks were barely literate. It was under this situation that Yang Wen-hui, Abbot T'ai-hsu, Abbot Jen-san and other Buddhists initiated, with great difficulties, Neo-Buddhism and monastic education.[51] The new style Buddhist tried, especially by using the rich philosophical tradition of Indian Buddhism, to prove that Buddhism is not irrational or unscientific.[52] Some Neo-Buddhists were extremely learned, and were competent enough to develop a dialogue between Buddhism and Western science. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the main stream of traditional Chinese Buddhism did not give high priority to reason and the pursuit of knowledge. Buddhism adopts many different approaches in the pursuit of the highest wisdom (wan ch'ien fa-men). Reason and knowledge are accepted as analytical tools toward a higher realization that is beyond words, but with the premise that people should keep themselves from relying too much on words and concepts (cho yen-yu wen-tse hsiang).[53]
Philosophical Taoism has fully matured naturalistic epistemological, metaphysical, ethical, and social-political views. Taoism is featured by a holistic and all-inclusive understanding of the Tao of the world. A natural result of the pursuit of this highest yet unspeakable and undifferentiated wisdom is that Taoism often criticizes the pursuit of knowledge and reasoning as being very limited, and for creating contentious and misleading thought. In modern China, philosophical Taoism strongly influenced many intellectuals.[54]
Other important sources of counter-Enlightenment thought lay in Chinese medicine, martial and physical arts, and meditation. These practices or "discourses" derived their cosmological views and internal logic mainly from Taoism and the Five-Elements school (Yin-yang wu-hsing chia), and also from Buddhism and Confucianism. They were severely attacked by the positivist iconoclasts in modern China. Nevertheless, unlike other philosophical stances, these practices could be experimented with empirically. Many moderns, especially those with positivist minds, began their sympathetic understanding of traditional Chinese world views through these practices. As for older-style Chinese, these practices were often very much a part of ordinary life. The counter-Enlightenment thought of some important modern Chinese intellectuals like Liang Shu-ming, Ting Fu-pao, and Chiang Wei-ch'iao were strongly influenced by these practices. On the other hand, many of the heirs of these traditional discourses, overwhelmed by the authority of the "scientific discourse" of the West, also tried very hard to prove that these Chinese "discourses" are also "scientific."[55] It is undeniable that the cosmological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions of these practices are fundamentally different from those of Western sciences. Simply put, they are simply products of a very different world view.
The traditional Chinese world view, which I regard as being more artistic and humanistic than scientific or rational, is thoroughly integrated with Chinese literature, art, theater, legends, and language. It can also be seen in various kinds of "symbolic systems" -- religions, customs, rituals, social decorum, behavior patterns -- and in "non-symbolic systems" like the tacit exchange of feelings between people.[56] All these, consciously or unconsciously, are often at odds with Enlightenment rationality. As Lu Hsun, China's chief iconoclast, often noted, the May Fourth iconoclastic and revolutionary plans were doomed to fail. These revolutionaries, though they failed in their attempt to abandon the old China and build a new one on foreign models, already brought immeasurable anxiety and feelings of loss of meaning, as well as pains and sufferings to most Chinese. To a great extent, they should also be held responsible for the bankruptcy of value system in contemporary China.[57]
Most of the traditional sources mentioned above were not self-expressive enough to form an intellectually well-defined system of counter-Enlightenment thought to challenge the pressure from imported Enlightenment rationalism. Neo-Confucianism, which drew resources from not only Confucian, Taoist, Buddhist, but also from other traditional practices, was a major exception. The reasons for its success are complex, and will be discussed in the following chapters. One reason, which is especially relevant to our topic, is that the popularity of New Confucianism, instead of Ch'an, Taoism, or Buddhism, in modern China stemmed not only from its own value, but also from the fact that it formed a new-style criticism of and dialogue with the Enlightenment rationality. To learn from the West was a dominant trend in modern China. Educational systems, media, and political power were largely controlled by new-style elites; even traditional thinkers had to play by the new rules. In addition, Founders of New Confucianism like Liang Shu-ming and Chang Chun-mai had by this time adopted new-style analysis and languages to strengthen their points. It soon became evident that only those who could survive in this "discourse of power" could be influential.
The Chinese Counter-Enlightenment was also strongly influenced by Western sources. As stated above, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Western world view began to undergo the most important change in its entire intellectual history. Chinese intellectuals at that time, especially those after the First World War, were very much interested in and encouraged by, this fundamental change in the West. The turn-of-the-century thinkers already often mentioned, as well as major scientists like Einstein, Planck, and Maxwell received great attention in China. Their theories gave some of the most sensitive Chinese the impression that traditional Western metaphysics and the mechanistic and static world view was out of date, and that an evolutionary, organic world view was taking its place.
Before 1949, there were many imported Western theories that were more or less conducive to the counter-Enlightenment thought.[58] Some schools like Darwinism, Anarchism, Pragmatism and Socialism contain both Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment elements.[59] A natural result for the Chinese in this period was their flexibility to choose whichever elements seemed to best suit their needs. These Western discourses were used by the iconoclasts to promote universal Enlightenment rationality, and were also used by cultural conservatives to refute the dominance of rationalism and mechanistic world view. Schools like Voluntarism, Neo-Romanticism, and Existentialism are predominantly counter-Enlightenment, hence, they were loved or hated respectively by different sides. It is impossible, given the limited scope of this dissertation, to give an overall evaluation of the influence of all these schools on The Chinese counter-Enlightenment; nevertheless, in our case studies, most of these schools will be discussed in the following chapters.
In the meantime, although the Chinese Romantics were not real Counter-Enlightenment writers, they inevitably held many counter-Enlightenment attributes. Almost all the nineteenth century's important Romantic and Neo-Romantic writers were adored and imitated by the May Fourth Chinese writers.[60] The pursuit of "Prometheanism" and "Dionysianism" made up their dreams. Numerous Chinese writers were all engrossed in the pursuit of love, passionate life, the will to fight and to struggle, and the fulfillment of individuality. As both Liang Shih-ch'iu and Leo Lee have pointed out, these writers were worshipers of feelings and passions, and the antithesis of reason.[61] These young lions believed that only by returning to the truest, most uninterrupted, and undisguised natural feelings could they recreate a new world in the ashes of a burned-down, formerly tradition-ridden, land. They represented the spirit of a New China. In many aspects, as we will see, New Confucian ideals of "moral fundamentalism," which tried to revive the meaning of tradition, shared the same revolutionary, religious, and burning spirit.
To a great extent, the May Fourth Movement was a romantic movement. Revolutionary passion and the will to reevaluate and recreate everything overwhelmed the era. The French Enlightenment had been preceded by more than a century of great discoveries in science, but the so-called Chinese Enlightenment of the May Fourth era was preceded only by age-old Chinese traditions and revolutionary chaos. The passion to break all the traditional and "feudal" bonds, together with the chaotic social and political situation, made it hard for any composed rationalism or serious scientific study to survive. Most of the May-Fourth writers knew very little about science and Western rationalism, and were just new-style Confucian men of letters. Culturally and politically, a true Enlightenment was impossible. Therefore, it was not surprising that after a superficial Enlightenment rationalist movement in the May-Fourth era, modern China was dominated by a series of romantic and revolutionary movements.
Among all these conflicting and overlapping schools, I paid the most attention to Neo-Confucians not only because they have continuously shown their energy and influence since the May Fourth, but also because through the study of them, we can see how various kinds of traditional schools and Western influence worked together in their efforts to create a new world view. Many different Western counter-Enlightenment philosophies were introduced into China. Nevertheless, the most influential Counter-Enlightenment school created under Western influence was also the one which bore the closest affinity to Chinese tradition, namely Neo-Romantic Philosophy of Life. As it happened, most of these Neo-Romantics also became New Confucians.
The "Philosophy of Life" School in Modern China
The gist of the Chinese Counter-Enlightenment is a kind of Sheng-sheng ssu-hsiang ("Philosophy of Life" or "Life Philosophy"). Before we progress to our discussion, we must define this highly ambiguous term. People may easily confuse this term with that of Sheng-ming te che-hsueh (also translated as "Philosophy of Life"), a term which has become the patent of later Chinese New Confucians. In modern Chinese, the term sheng-ming is taken to mean human life, though literally this term should mean life and heavenly ordainment. Hence, Sheng-ming te che-hsueh is used by contemporary Chinese New Confucians mainly as an ethical and moral philosophy that emphasizes the intimate and intuitive understanding of the true and "ontological" meaning or tao of life, and, especially, the unification of one's personality and behavior with this learning. But in earlier periods, the term sheng-ming was seldom used in this sense. Instead, scholars preferred to use sheng-sheng (or simply sheng) to describe a basic virtue of the universe that also has enormous ethical implications to peoples' lives (jen-sheng). This philosophy was mainly an effort to combine modern science and Western philosophy with traditional Chinese cosmological beliefs originating in the Confucian and Taoist classic I-Ching. It refers primarily to a cosmological and metaphysical system of thought, but is also inseparable from an epistemological and ethical belief system. It was widely adopted, to a greater or lesser degree, not only by New Confucians but also by most thinkers since the late Ch'ing period.
To the Chinese, the ultimate is beyond words. Hence, the concept of "life" in the Philosophy of Life is used more as a metaphor than a clearly-defined idea. I would like to summarize its connotations in the following six aspects of belief:
First, Nature, human beings, and society are parts of a cosmic process -- a life-like, never-ending, growing process of becoming. Beside this cosmic process, there is no reality. Substance and phenomena are one. Beyond the cosmic process of this world, there is no transcendental or nominal world, as in the Greek, Judeo-Christian and Kantian traditions (t'i-yung-i-yuan hsien-wei-wu-chien or t'i-yung-pu-erh). From this cosmological belief comes the doubts of the reality of those fundamental ideas in Western rationalist tradition -- substance, being, the great chain of being, essence, reality, concepts, forms, and the very concept of "idea" itself. It also leads to their emphasis on the intuitive understanding of things, and the belief that full realization of the Tao is never a product of reasoning, but the result of continuing praxis and self-cultivation (t'i-yen).
Second: Philosophy of Life is also characterized by a holistic and organismic world view, in which every individual part is related. From this belief come the holistic, dialectical, and correlative ways of thinking--essential to the so-called "Chinese logic" -- doubts on the capacity of formal logic, and emphasis on art instead of on science. To the Chinese, life is the ultimate "reality" that is larger than art, science, and reason.
Third: there is an emphasis on an "essential" life-drive --be it instinct, impetus, will, or the universal sympathy (jen) -- that precedes and activates everything. This life-drive is taken as the fundamental motivating force of everything; without it, there is no life, no civilization, and no history. As a response, but also under the influence of the contemporary iconoclastic trend (fan li-chiao), it reassured the Lu-Wang-style stress on human subjectivity, and rediscovered the true meaning of traditional moral teachings.
Fourth: From the emphasis on the essential life-drive came the awakening of human subjectivity, voluntarism, and emphasis on inner life. The result of this is the depreciating or even rejection of the established rules, laws, and institutions. Reason, on the other hand, is regarded as something that restricts the natural, autonomous, free inner life-drive. With the search for the essential and ultimate, it tends to neglect the importance of various kinds of functional or secondary divisions in society and nature -- categorization, divergence, bureaucratization, and division of labor in modern culture and society. In other words, it is detrimental to the process of rationalization.
Fifth: As a compensation to this subjective tendency, advocates of Philosophy of Life also emphasized a universal sympathy toward both nature and human beings. This emphasis is also a logical result of the holistic world view, and the belief that life-drive is universal and commonly-shared by nature. This holistic view and emphasis on universal sympathy made many of these types of advocates socialists.
Sixth: Philosophy of Life is part of the traditional and never-ceasing search for Tao, a conscious or unconscious search still shared by almost all modern Chinese intellectuals.
Since the Philosophy of Life is deeply rooted in Chinese traditions, it was naturally a major component in the philosophy of Late-Ch'ing thinkers. We can see prototypes of this philosophy most clearly in T'an Ssu-t'ung's theory of universal sympathy (jen-hsueh), Chang T'ai-yen's Yogacara Buddhism and Taoist philosophy, and K'ang Yu-wei's philosophy of universal harmony (ta-t'ung). It could also be found in the thoughts of much more Westernized thinkers including Yen Fu's adoption of Spencer and Huxley's organicism, Sun Yat-sen's belief in life-source (sheng-yuan), and Lu Hsun's romanticism.
First systematized by Liang Shu-ming around 1920, Philosophy of Life enjoyed great popularity during the May-Fourth period. Scholars like Chang Chun-mai, Feng Yu-lan, Chu Ch'ien-chih, and Li Shih-ts'en were also famous advocates of various forms of Philosophy of Life in this period. Its influence declined after the wide spread of Dialectical Materialism after the 1927 revolution. Nonetheless, it remained the central belief of New Confucians like Hsiung Shih-li, Ho Lin, Fang Tung-mei, T'ang Chun-i, and Mo Tsung-san. It was also an important element in the thought of significant humanists like Ch'ien Mu, Tsung Pai-hua, Chu Kuang-ch'ien, and in the thought of almost all cultural conservatives in modern China. Kuomintang thinkers like Ch'en Li-fu, Ch'en Ch'ien-fu, Tai Chi-t'ao were famous for their interpretation of Sun Yen-sun's Philosophy of Life or their personal Philosophy of Life. Even the popularity of Pragmatism and Marxism had much in common with the imbedded Philosophy of Life in Chinese society. Moreover, it was an underlying principle of most of the famous and representative Chinese philosophical systems created in 1940s such as Positivist logician Chin Yueh-lin's On Tao, Marxist logicians Chang Shen-fu and Chang Tai-nien's belief in sheng-sheng, Ho Lin and Feng Yu-lan's New Confucian philosophy.[62] Even today, Philosophy of Life is still popular in Taiwan, and began gaining increasing influence in mainland China after 1980.
Despite the significance of the Philosophy of Life in modern Chinese history, it is a topic that has never been seriously studied. Scholars more or less know the existence of this kind of thought in the philosophy of many important thinkers, but it seems that none has explored the historical meaning of this counter-Enlightenment trend in China's search for modernity, and its central role in the meeting of Chinese and Western mind and culture. It is, however, beyond the capacity of this dissertation to interpret and evaluate fully the influence of this counter-Enlightenment thought in modern Chinese history. Hence, we will focus our attention on the May Fourth Period.
[1]Ex. Vera Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 1-11, 13, 94, 106-7, 118-121, 122, 125, 202, 207, 226-227, 239.
[2]The romantic thinker Ku Hung-ming was an exception, but he was brought up and educated abroad and had no real influence.
[3]Eg. D. W. Y. Kwok, Scientism in Chinese Thought 1900-1950 (New Haven: Yale University, 1965), Part IV, especially, 160.
[4]In Hu Shih, Tai Tung-yuan te che-hsueh (Shanghai, 1927), 196. Quoted from Yu Ying-shih, Chung-kuo chin-tai ssu-hsiang-shih shang te Hu Shih (Taipei, 1984), 73.
[5]Ai Ssu-ch'i, "Erh-shih-erh nien-lai-te chung-kuo che-hsueh ssu-ch'ao," in Chung-kuo hsien-tai che-hsueh-shih chia-hsueh tzu-liao hsuan-chi (Peking, 1988), 516. To Ai, the rise of the philosophy of life, no matter whether it is indigenous or imported, is the symptom of the declining struggle of national and world capitalism, and resurgence of feudalism.
[6]The Chinese romantics, however, were seldom serious counter-Enlightenment thinkers. In fact, many of them assumed a pro-Enlightenment stance. But the way they thought and behaved was often very much in keeping with counter-Enlightenment mentality.
[7]See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York; Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958); Schluchter, Wolfgang, The Rise of Western Rationalism: Max Weber's Developmental History, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981; Talcott Parsons, Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966); Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964); Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972); Richard J. Bernstein ed., Habermas and Modernity (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1991); David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1990), 3-38. The term "modernization," designed to be applicable to all societies, was introduced only in the 1950s. Weber did not use this term. The process of rationalization in his system is uniquely Western.
[8]Jurgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (tr. Frederick G. Lawrence, The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1990), 1-3. S. N. Eisenstadt, Modernization: Protest and Change (London and Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1966).
[9]Quoted from Habermas, Discourse of Modernity, 3.
[10]Ibid., 4, 83-105, 132-140; Ernst Behler, Confrontations : Derrida, Heidegger, Nietzsche (tr., with an afterward, by Steven Taubeneck. Stanford: Stanford University, 1991), 17-18, 23-48.
[11]Ibid, 4. Also see Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (New York : Pantheon Books, 1975).
[12]Ibid., 3-4.
[13]This dissertation, as a historical study, does not intend to resolve all these theoretical controversies. But we will find Chinese reflections on Western rationalism in the May Fourth era sheds much light on the above questions.
[14]Weber carefully distinguished between different kinds of rationality: instrumental rationality, purposive-rationality (purposiverational Zweckrationalitat), value-rationality (Wertrationalitat); calculative reason, formal rationality, substantive rationality; pure reason, practical reason, and theoretical reason.
[15]Max Weber, The Religion of China [tr. Hans H. Gerth, New York: The Free Press, 1951], 226. This theory has also been systematically illustrated in Keith Thomas's classic, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971). This Protestant ethic is crucial to the rise of capitalism, modern science, the judicial system, and democracy that eventually lead to the secularization of the world.
[16]Merton, Robert King, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: Free Press, 1968), 628-660; Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being : A Study of The History of An Idea (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1936), 76-80; Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality (Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 12-18. Weberian interpretation, which is strongly influenced by German idealism and his Protestant background, however, is often challenged by Marxian scholars and those scholars who emphasize the "natural," or technical and institutional aspects of modernity. (Ref. Dobb, Maurice Herbert, Studies in the Development of Capitalism [New York, 1963];) For some powerful modifications and criticism of Weber's theory, also see Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century (translated by Sian Reynolds, New York : Harper & Row, 1981); Tawney, R. H. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism : a Historical Study (New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books, 1938).
[17]Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.)
[18]Ref. Robert, Bellah, Tokugawa Religion (Glencoe: Free Press, 1957); Chin Yao-chi, Chung-kuo ming-chu chih k'un-chu yu fa-chan (Taipei, 1987); Huang Ray, Tzu-pen chu-i yu erh-shih-i shih-chi (Taipei, 1991).
[19]Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 13.
[20]Eighteenth-century philosophes did not have an adequate understanding of the Greeks, and they even felt confused while confronting the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Nevertheless, they still "borrowed better than they knew" (Peter Gay, The Enlightenment [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1966], 82-84).
[21]For disengaged reason, See Charles Taylor, Sources of The Self : The Making of The Modern Identity (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1989), 288, 461-466. On the other hand, modern rationalism also differs from the Greek tradition in that it more strongly emphasize human subjectivity and the anthropocentric meaning of rationality than it does the objective and solid relationship between rationality and reality. Ancient and Medieval westerners tend to put more emphasis on the order and rationality of the world, which is dictated either by the nature of the universe or by God, than on human reason itself. The purpose of reason is to understand the rationale or the substance of the world. However, after the rise of emphasis on human subjectivity in Renaissance, the center gradually shifted from outside order to inner reason. Man's reason became the standard of world rationality. According to this line of thought, things are thought to be reasonable not because the outside order appears to be so, but because we humans think it to be so. This anthrop-centric approach is revolutionary in the West, and is one of the key elements of modernity. (Charles Taylor, Hegel and Modern Society [New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979], 74-75).
[22]For the centrality of rationalism to Enlightenment and modern European mind, see Peter Gay, The Enlightenment I, 72-93, 212-236; II, 27-55.
[23]1. Hu Shih and his followers regarded "Confucian rationalism"-- non-mystic attitude, emphasis on examined knowledge and careful learning -- as one of China's most important heritages. They failed to define the categorical difference between Chinese and Western modes of thinking, and they treated Chinese rationalism as an underdeveloped form of universal, scientific rationalism. 2. The subtle difference between Chinese and Western views toward reason and rationality has greatly obstructed the real understanding of Western rationalism. To determine the meaning and value of these different rationalities is one of the greatest issues in modern Chinese intellectual history.
[24]See Wu, Zhong. Mathematical Rationalism vs. Confucian Perspective: A Comparative Perspective on Science and Society China (Boston University, PHD dissertation, 1985). The author also asserts that traditional Chinese Confucians and Taoists thought had "morally naturalistic views of nature," and that the Chinese study of nature remained practical and empirical. This, however, is not completely true. The dialectical, holistic, and correlative modes of Chinese thinking have their own rules and rationality. Traditional Chinese scholarship is also much more than just moral, empirical, or practical. (Ex. see Ch'ien Mu, Kuo-hsueh kai-lun [Taipei, 1956], and his Chung-kuo hsueh-shu t'ung-i [Taipei, 1976].)
[25]Yen Fu, Mu-lo ming-hsueh (John S. Mill's "A System of Logic," a classical summary of the classical British Empiricism; Shanghai: 1902), 2. In modern China, the first systematic inquiry into the nature, limits, and meaning of Western knowledge system was conducted by Yen Fu (1853-1921). As one of the earliest overseas Chinese students to Britain, he had a fair understanding of many aspects of Western science and philosophy. He systematically selected and translated several modern Western classics in social sciences and philosophy, and had a great impact on contemporary Chinese intellectuals. Yen Fu believed in Classical British Empiricism, and was an ardent follower of Herbert Spencer. He is the first Chinese who realized that the success of the modern West comes not only from its technology and fine institutions, but originated in its knowledge system and the special ways of thinking. Yen Fu noticed the importance of Western logic as early as 1881, and began to introduce it in 1900. In his later years, however, he was very dissatisfied with Western civilization.
[26]For an excellent interpretation of Greek science, see G. E. R. Lloyd, Early Greek Science : Thales to Aristotle (New York : W.W. Norton, 1970); G. E. R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason, and Experience : Studies in the Origin and Development of Greek Science (Cambridge [Eng.] : Cambridge University Press, 1979).
[27]Confucian ideas of "knowledge" are much less conceptual, analytical, rigid, and theoretical than the western views. Confucianism takes the world of knowing as an inseparable whole, hence each knowing action is affected by, also affective to, all others. No single act of knowing can lead to perfection, hence man's inquiry of true knowledge and wisdom must be, in contemporary terminology, a hermeneutic circle, and knowledge must be accumulated over a life-time. Confucianism also rejects the idea that only conceptual knowledge is dependable. Immediate feelings and sensations, inspirational awareness, bird's-eye view, observational knowledge, and, most important of all, true realization through praxis and self-cultivation, are also important to Confucians. Confucians are men of letters who enjoy swimming in the sea of both the known and the unknown, employing all of man's natural faculties to make sense of this world. (Ref: Ch'ien Mu, Wan-hsueh mang-yen [Taipei: 1987], 435-437; 796-835)
[28]It appears that Christianity, art, literature, certain social customs, geographical influences, and many other factors that have also played important roles in the rise of the West were not as appealing to the Chinese.
[29]Of course most scholars, even now, respond to the meaning of the imported logic, science, technology, Western knowledge system, utilitarianism, capitalism, and Western rationalism from a partial basis. Only some of the best thinkers in modern China, like Yen Fu, Hu Shih, Liang Shu-ming, and Ch'ien Mu approximated the whole picture. Most scholars only see separate advocacy for or protests toward scientism, materialism, mechanization, naturalism, social engineering, alienation, reification in capitalism, etc.
[30]Li Tse-ho, Chung-kuo hsien-tai ssu-hsiang-shih lun (Peking, 1987; Taipei reprint, 1988), 7-44. Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment, 1, 10, 164, 230-32, 286-91.
[31]Young Lu Shun, Hsu Chih-mo, Yu Ta-fu, Kuo Mo-jo, Chiang Kuang-tz'u, Hsiao Chun and even Pa Chin are all good examples. See Leo Lee, The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973); Jonathan Spence, The Gate of Heavenly Peace (New York, Penguin Books, 1981), 94-103, 188-216.
[32]Lee, Romantic Generation, 292.
[33]See chapter three, section II, subsection B for more about Confucian fundamentalism.
[34]Many, if not most, of the Chinese romantic thinkers, especially in their early years, were once admirers of Taoism, Buddhism, or even Confucian fundamentalism. A Taoist or Buddhist world view of becoming and its aesthetics, or the Confucian emphasis on universal compassion and sincere affection (yen) could be found in Lin Shu, Su Man-shu ( Lee, Romantic Generation, 41-78, 259-262), Kuo Mo-jo (Ibid., 183-186, 194), Ch'u Chiu-pai (Spence, The Gate, 170-72, 175), Hsu Chih-mo (Ibid., 210-213, 216), Young Lu Hsun (Lu Hsun Chuan-chi [Peking, 1981], V.1, 57, 269; Ts'ao Chu-jen, Lu Hsun ping-chuan [Hong Kong], 41-43), Hsieh Pin-Hsin, Chu Chih-ch'ing, Hsu Te-shen, (Li Tse-hou, Chung-kuo hsien-tai ssu-hsiang-shih lun, 260-268), Wu-Ming-shih, and their numerous contemporaries.
[35]Ref: Alitto, Guy. The last Confucian : Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1979); Guy Alitto, Wen-hua-shou-ch'en-chu-i lun (On Cultural Conservatism, published in Chinese, Taipei, 1986).
[36]Guy Alitto points out that Liang's philosophy is counter-Enlightenment, but he does not see the depth, richness and implications of this system, and tends to mistake it for an imitation of Bergsonian philosophy. (Alitto, The Last Confucian, 98-101.) My detailed study of Liang attempts to show that his view is inadequate.
[37]Nevertheless, despite its many similarities to Western Romanticism, Chinese counter-Enlightenment, as we shall see, also differs from Romanticism in many ways.
[38]Before them, Ku Hung-ming was the first Chinese to hold a systematic counter-Enlightenment philosophy. Born in colonized Malaysia, Ku was educated completely in the British way, and went back to China only after he finished his master's degree in Europe. Strongly influenced by Matthew Arnold, R. W. Emerson, and British Romanticism, he was firmly opposed to the materialized and mechanistic Western civilization. Nevertheless, partly because of his foreign background, and partly because his thought was too much ahead of the time, Ku was never taken seriously by most of his contemporary Chinese intellectuals. (Ref. Ku Hung-Ming, The Story of a Chinese Oxford Movement [Shanghai : Shanghai Mercury, 1912.]; Papers from A Viceroy's Yamen [Shanghai : Shanghai Mercury, 1901]; Chen Ching-chih, "Ku Hung-ming," Wen-yuan feng-yun wu-shih nien, chap. 17.)
[39]Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, 8-11.
[40]Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, tr. Clifton P. Fadiman, in The
Philosophy of Nietzsche (New York, 1937), 68-69; Nietzsche, The Gay Science, tr. Kaufmann, (New York, 1974), 306, 329.
[41]See Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1932), chap. one.
[42]This is the primary argument of Franklin Baumer's interpretation of modern European intellectual history. See his Modern European Thought (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1977).
[43]Carl L. Becker points out that the basic change of "climates of opinion," which became obvious in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century, and distinguished modern thinking from Enlightenment and pre-Enlightenment thought, is best described by "Whirl is king, having deposed Zeus (symbol of order)." (The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers, [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1932], 15). Whitehead proposes the organismic and progressing new world view in his Science and Modern World and Process and Reality. Nietzsche champions a dynamic world view of becoming in Ecce Homo, The Gay Science, and many other writings. Heidegger stresses the holistic, evolving, inseparable quality of Reality in Time and Being. Dewey celebrates the organismic and evolutionary new world view with his pragmatism. Collingwood made clear contrast between ancient, medieval, and modern world views in his The Idea of History.
[44]For a good interpretation of Cosmic process and its relationship with Buddhism, see Huxley, Evolution and Ethics (London: Pilot Press, 1947). Conceptualization, defined in the Greek tradition, is the basic requisite of Western rationalism, but not of Chinese rationality (ref. Weber, "Science as a Vocation," in Weber, Max. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology [Translated, edited, and with an introduction by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York, Oxford University Press], 1946.)
[45]If we were to choose one word to symbolize, not represent, the basic characteristic of the ideal of Western science and rationalism, it would be the Greek word logos. In Greek, logos can mean "speech," "word," "thought," "reason," "the science of," "the principles and methods in a particular discipline," "the underlying reasons," "those features in a thing that make it intelligible to us," or "the rationale of a thing." Generally speaking, a true system of knowledge is the knowledge of the logos in the universe, comprehended by man's reason--the logos in us, and expressed logically. However, although most modern scholars recognize the great importance of the idea of logos, they find it impossible to define without oversimplifying it. The same applies to a definition of the nature of Western science and rationalism. They are topics studied generation after generation, by Westerners and non-Westerners alike. ( Ref. Paul Edwards, editor in chief, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy [New York: Macmillan, 1967], "Logos.")
[46]Ref. Kuo Chan-po, Chin-tai Chung-kuo Ssu-hsiang-shih (Hong-kong, 1972), 459-466.
[47]Nearly eighty years later, some contemporary Chinese thinkers found out again that traditional Chinese thought bears many similarities to the basic philosophical assumptions of Post-modernism, but they seem to be unaware of what their forerunners have achieved. (Ex. Kan Yang's preface to the Chinese translation of Cassirer's Sprache und Mythos [tr. Yu hsiao, Yu-yen yu shen-hua (Taipei: 1989)], xi-xxxi.)
[48]Counter-Enlightenment is not necessarily conservative. In fact, it is often a revolutionary power; especially for those Chinese Nietzscheans like Lu Hsun and Li Shih-ts'en. On the other hand, not all culturally conservative groups were anti-rationalists. The "Critical Review (hsueh-heng)" school, followers of Irving Babbit's New Humanism, advocated both Greek and Confucian rationalism, and was strongly opposed to Romanticism, subjectivism, and sentiment-oriented ethics. (For the Critical Review school's criticism on Chinese romantic writers, see Shen, Sung-ch'iao, Hsueh-heng-p'ai yu wu-ssu shih-ch'i ti fan-hsin-wen-hua yun-tung [Taipei, 1984], 164-170.)
[49]But this does not mean that they are necessarily incompatible with Enlightenment rationalism. While much of their legacy is not relevant to Western rationalism, certain elements of counter-Enlightenment thought in them can be reconciled with Enlightenment rationality, if seen from a higher level. Some of them, like Confucianism's emphasis on knowledge and education, human dignity, "moral autonomy" (wei-jen ju-chi), "rational" world view, righteousness, etc. are conducive to the introduction of Enlightenment rationality.
[50]Most of the Yogacara classics were translated into Chinese, but many were lost due to wars and negligence. Only in the 1880-90s did Yang Wen-hui, the founder of Neo-Buddhism in China, retrieve them from Japan, reintroduce them to the Chinese, and revive the study (Shih Tung-ch'u, Chung-kuo Fo-chiao chin-tai-shih [Taipei: Chung-hua fo-chiao wen-hua-kuan, 1974], 42-46).
[51]Ibid., 80, 92-99.
[52]There were several serious points of contention between Buddhism, religious beliefs, and science after the May-Fourth. Buddhism had been victim to severe oppression since the reform movement of 1898, and was especially jeopardized after the New Culture Movement and the Northern Expedition. See Shih Tung-ch'u, Chung-kuo Fo-chiao chin-tai-shih, 72-77, 113-117, 131-196, 568-592.
[53]Many people would argue that in Chinese Buddhism we can find a rich legacy of philosophical analysis and equal emphasis on understanding and praxis. It is true that Buddhism by its very essence is perhaps the world's most philosophical religion. But the Chinese mode of thinking seems to have directed the Buddhism more to a praxis-and-wisdom-oriented practice than to a logos-oriented philosophy (Ibid., 197-203).
[54]1. Intellectuals like Yen Fu, Chang T'ai-yen, Lu Hsun, Ch'ien Mu, Chu Kuang-ch'ien, Tsung Pai-hua. Numerous others also took Taoism as a major part of their philosophy. 2. The discussion above is limited to philosophical Taoism. Nevertheless, religious Taoism is also very influential in Chinese society. Religious Taoism is a combination of myths, indigenous religious beliefs, Five-Elements School, Buddhism, philosophical Taoism, and special experiences in certain arcane areas. Although it is severely criticized by most modern Chinese intellectuals, and was suppressed by the Communist government, it is still very active today. Mythical thought is excluded from this study. But we have to admit that mythical thought, thought suppressed, contributes to the reaction toward rationalism of many, especially lower-level, Chinese.
[55]We can find Chinese using modern physics, biology, and physiology to interpret the meaning or principles of these practices in most modern introductions of these traditional practices (Ex. See Chen Hui-chien ed, Ching-cho san-mei chi [Taipei, 1979]).
[56]For the meaning of "symbolic systems" see Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man (New Haven, Yale University, 1944).
[57]According to Robert N. Bellah: "The central question posed by the Chinese experiment seems to be whether the frontal assault on tradition is highly favorable to rapid development or is in itself so disruptive as to impede development. . . . Radical, indeed fanatical, solutions often seem more able to break loose from tradition and stimulate rapid social change. Yet there is the evident danger that such sharp breaks in identity many produce severe pathology leading to social breakdown. (Bellah, Religion and Progress in Modern Asia [New York: Free Press, 1965], 222-224.)
[58]They can roughly be grouped into the following categories: Evolutionary theory, Theory of Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Anarchism, Skepticism, Romanticism, German Idealism, Voluntarism, Neo-Romantic Philosophy of Life, Humanism, Existentialism, Pragmatism, modern psychology, Idealist Aesthetics, and certain schools of Socialism.
[59]Also in this list are Theory of Relativity, Skepticism, Quantum Mechanics, German Idealism, modern psychology, Idealist Aesthetics, and Humanism.
[60]They are Byron, Shelley, Keats, Goethe, Tolstoy, Gorky, Nietzsche, Hugo, Rolland Romain, Lamartine, and the Indian Romantic, Tagore. But these romantics were also severely criticized by many progressives, especially the Marxists. Chen Tu-hsiu, not surprising, compared Tagore directly to New Confucians like Liang Shu-ming and Chang Chun-mai (Jonathan Spence, The Gate of Heavenly Peace [New York, Penguin Books, 1981], 214-215).
[61]Like Pa Chin, Hsu Chih-mo, Yu Ta-fu, Ting Ling, Ts'ao Yu, Hsiao Chun, and Chiang Kuang-tz'u. See Leo Lee, "The romantic Temper of May Fourth Writers," (in B. Schwartz, ed. Reflections on the May Fourth Movement: A Symposium [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972.]), 69-83.
[62]For an excellent introduction to Chin, Chang brothers, Ho and Feng's metaphysics, see Li Wei-wu, Erh-shih shih-chi Chung-kuo che-hsueh pen-t'i-lun wen-t'i (Ch'ang-sha shih, 1991), 129-162, 194-240.