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Editor's Introduction EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION SOME SIGNIFICANCE OF YING- SHIH YÜ’S BOOK ON THE RELIGIOUS ETHIC AND MERCANTILE SPIRIT IN EARLY MODERN CHINA An “Editorial” in Max Weber Studies (2014) sets forth Thomas Metzger’s criticisms of Weber’s judgment about Confucianism. By highlighting changes in Confucianism during the Song (960– 1279) era when Confu- cians focused on tensions within oneself and with the status quo in the world, Metzger rightly pointed out that Weber had overlooked Confu- cian developments during the Song period. Metzger even claimed that Confucians sought control of the cosmos. His assertion centered on a quotation from the most influential Song Confucian, Zhu Xiᵡ⟩ (1130– 1200): Even more, the theme of power over the cosmos was clear, at least in Zhu Xi: “Man is the mind of heaven and earth. When man is not present, there is no one to control heaven and earth.” This sense of cosmic power, as already indicated, was connected to the desire for “mastery,” and in Zhu Xi’s thought it was also related to the image of the sage who was not only pure of heart but really does bring political harmony and economic well- being to the empire.1 The original quotation from Zhu Xi (“Ӫ㘵ཙൠѻᗳ˗⋂䙉Ӫᱲˈཙൠ⋂Ӫ ㇑”) was in his comment on the Analects (15.28) of Confucius and would be more aptly translated as “Humans are the mind of heaven and earth; when there are no people, there is no one to be concerned about or to care for heaven and earth.”2 The conference committee’s editorial might have used this published correction of Metzger’s translation and inter- pretation to counter his critique and to illustrate how easy it is for crit- ics of Weber to twist historical sources in their own efforts to rectify Weber’s understandings of history. However, the editorial articulated a larger purpose. It highlighted the point that for both Weber and his critics, a significant question, which needs to be addressed, is “to what extent these written sources were grounded in the main classes and groups whose collective behavior patterned the course of history.”3 I will demonstrate that Ying- shih Yü (Yu Yingshi ։㤡ᱲ) provides a more convincing account of Zhu Xi’s inner tensions than Metzger did. Fur- thermore, the primary source materials and observations that Professor Yü provides— as if in anticipation of this challenging question— are among the reasons that discussions of Chinese receptions of Max Weber should not neglect Yü’s monograph Zhongguo jinshi zongjiao lunli yu shangren jingshen ѝ഻䘁цᇇᮉٛ⨶㠷୶Ӫ㋮⾎ (The Religious Ethic and Mercantile Spirit in Early Modern China) (1987).4 (Here, early modern China refers to the middle and especially the late periods of imperial China.) Given Yü’s extensive research and insights, the English version should significantly enrich Western understanding of the enhanced “inner- worldly turn” in Chinese religions and their influence on the spirit and ethic in the society of late imperial China; moreover, his nuanced and multifaceted analytical account should contribute to Western discussions of Chinese religions and comparative studies of religions. Yet Ying- shih Yü’s book has not even been included in the two standard overview articles on the reception of Max Weber in China and Taiwan. For example, in Don S. Zang’s insightful survey, he char- acterizes the years from 1985 through 1992 as a period during which reading Weber was crucial, especially to Chinese seeking an alterna- tive to Marxism in China’s modernization project, but the years from 1993 to 2013 as a time when “reactionary” interpretation of Weber xiv • Editor’s Introduction characterized Weber as an Orientalist. Those Chinese who rejected Weber utilized postmodern jargon to criticize Weber; moreover, this tide arose from nationalistic impulses encouraged by the Communist Party. Most significantly, although Su Guoxun’s㰷഻ऋ work in the first period had been central to the crest of “Weber fever” in the 1980s, Su insisted in the second period on the need to reread Weber from a Chinese perspective; furthermore, he even asserted the reductionist claim that it was impossible for the West to understand Confucian- ism.5 Cai Bofang 㭑ঊᯩ contextualizes the period before 1980 as pre- paratory for the Weber fever of the 1980s and points to the role of Weberian studies in the indigenization of the social sciences in the 1980s. Moreover, Cai also contrasts the emphasis on the economic history of capitalism and on the comparative analyses of modernizing culture in the 1980s, on the one hand, to the critical re- evaluations of Weber after the early 1990s, on the other hand. Cai juxtaposes inter- pretations by sociologists and (mere) translations by historians, such as Kang Le ᓧ′ (1950– 2007) and Jian Huimei ㉑ᜐ㖾 in Taiwan. (Yü’s research in the mid- 1980s was surely a factor in his former Ph.D. stu- dent Kang Le’s decision, as well as that of Kang’s wife Jian Huimei, to focus on greatly expanding the corpus of Weber’s writings available in Chinese translation.) Of special interest, Cai highlights Su Guoxun’s 1980s interest in using Weberian insights to enable Chinese sociologists to correct Marxian deficiencies and to guard against the negative effects of mod- ernization in the West; nevertheless, Su’s publications in 2007 and 2011 criticized Weber’s neglect of the syncretism of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. Furthermore, Su charged that Weber’s construction of “ideal types,” based on his contrast between anthropocentric and theo- centric religions, started with a flawed methodology.6 Since Su’s later concerns mirror ones articulated in Ying- shih Yü’s 1987 monograph, the work of intellectual historians and scholars of China studies might well not only complement the standard focus on sociologists for inter- pretative and analytical contributions to understanding Chinese recep- tions of Weber’s work and methodology but also enhance comparative discussions of possible influence that religions have had on the spirit and ethic of merchants and societies in different cultures. Editor’s Introduction • xv YING- SHIH YÜ ON NEW RELIGIOUS ETHICS AND THE MERCANTILE SPIRIT IN CHINA Although Ying- shih Yü is arguably the most highly regarded intellec- tual historian among China scholars, his name is not a familiar one to non- Chinese readers in the West because almost all of his more than forty books and five hundred articles are available only in Chinese- language editions. Born in the city of Tianjin in 1930, he came from a scholarly family from Qianshan County ▋ኡ㑓 in rural Anhui. Living there from childhood into his midteens during World War II, he uti- lized the family’s library to educate himself. With admission into Yenching University in Beijing, he stayed behind in the family’s Shang- hai home after his parents fled the advancing Communist army; thus he has said that he was “liberated in Shanghai.” During his first college year in Beijing, he obtained a travel permit to Jiulong ҍ喽, rather than to Hong Kong, for the Chinese New Year; therefore he was able to legally exit the mainland and join his family in Hong Kong. Studying with Qian Mu 䥒ぶ (1895– 1990), Yü became the first graduate of New Asia College in 1952. Although admitted to Harvard University’s Ph.D. program, he was initially unable to go to the United States because the Nationalist government in Taiwan classified him as a radical activist and convinced U.S. officials to deny him a visa. Eventually a representa- tive of Yale- in- China helped persuade American officials to issue him a once- only entry document that required annual renewals in the United States. Only after earning his Ph.D. degree at Harvard with Professor Lien- sheng Yang ὺ㚟䲎 (1914– 1990) in 1962 and teaching at the Univer- sity of Michigan before becoming a professor at Harvard in 1966 did he finally cease to be stateless and have the ability to travel abroad with an American passport, even visiting Taiwan for the first time in 1971. Aca- demia Sinica elected him as an Academician in 1974, and he became a chaired professor at Yale in 1977 and at Princeton in 1987. In 2006 he became the first historian of Asia to receive, from the Library of Con- gress, the John W. Kluge Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Study of Humanity. The citation proclaimed, “Dr. ü Y ’s scholarship has been remarkably deep and widespread. His impact on the study of Chinese history, thought and culture has reached across many disciplines, time periods and issues, examining in a profound way major questions and xvi • Editor’s Introduction deeper truths about human nature.”7 Among the factors that attracted the Kluge Prize committee’s attention was probably Yü’s role as host at Princeton for refugee intellectuals who fled the crackdown of student protests at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 4, 1989. When chosen for the first Tang Prize Laureate in Sinology in 2014, he used the occa- sion to praise the recent student protest demonstrations in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Even though the Beijing government had long been unre- ceptive to Professor Yü’s critical scholarship and advocacy of human rights, Beijing further reacted to his comments by banning his publica- tions in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). His “refugee” experience as a “stateless” person for so many years surely not only enhanced his commitments to democracy and human rights but also gave him a pro- found appreciation for cultural traditions, pluralism, and comparative history. The structure of Ying- shih üY ’s book exploring the influence of Chi- na’s new religious ethics on the mercantile spirit in early modern China has three parts: (1) on new Chan ⿚ (Zen in Japanese) Buddhism and new religious Daoism; (2) on new Confucianism; and (3) on merchants and their manifestation of influence from the religious ethics in their personal behavior and business practices.
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