Research on Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism

Chapter 6 Research on Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism Translated by Chad Meyers and Joanna Guzowska 6.1 Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism (lixue 理学) is a philosophy reconstructed out of the long-term clash and integration of three teachings, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. It represents traditional Chinese philosophy’s high- est level of theoretical thought, and holds an extremely important position in the study of Chinese philosophy. However, the study of Song-Ming Neo- Confucianism has traveled a rocky and twisted path in accompaniment with the storms weathered by China since the 1950s, and the same goes for the study of Cheng-Zhu226 Neo-Confucianism as one very important field in the study of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism. The study of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism in Mainland China during this period may roughly be divided into four stages. The period prior to the reforming and opening up may be divided into two stages: the seventeen years spanning 1949 to 1966 constitute the first stage; the ten years spanning 1966 to 1976 constitute the second stage, that is, the Cultural Revolution. In the first stage, two volumes were written about the Cheng brothers and about fourteen volumes were written about Zhu Xi. Besides these, other works devoted chapters specifically to discussing Cheng- Zhu Neo-Confucianism, such as Zhongguo Sixiang Tongshi 中国思想通史 [A General History of Chinese Thought], edited by Hou Wailu 侯外庐 (Beijing: People’s Press, 1947–1965), Zhongguo Zhexue Shi 中国哲学史 [A History of Chinese Philosophy], edited by Ren Jiyu 任继愈 (Beijing: People’s Press, 1963– 1966 edition), Yang Rongguo’s 杨荣国 Zhongguo Gudai Sixiang Shi 中国古代思想史 [A History of Ancient Chinese Thought] (Beijing: People’s Press, 1954) and Zhongguo Zhexue Shi 中国哲学史 [A History of Chinese Philosophy], written by Peking University’s faculty of philosophy (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962). Roughly all of these studies of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism attempt to connect Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism to the political, economic, cultural, institutional, and class conditions of the Song dynasty, in order to analyze and 226 Translator’s note: “Cheng-Zhu” refers to the Cheng brothers—Cheng Hao 程颢 (d. 1085) and Cheng Yi 程颐 (d. 1107)—and Zhu Xi 朱熹 (d. 1200). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004360495_008 264 Chapter 6 reveal the specific historical character, the social origins, and the context of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism’s birth, development, and being. The first part of the fourth volume of Zhongguo Sixiang Tongshi, in which Hou Wailu, Qiu Hansheng 邱汉生, and Zhang Qizhi 张岂之 wrote about Cheng-Zhu Neo- Confucianism, is the most typical expression of this kind of research. The au- thors do not only parse out an intrinsic link between the theory of “Underlying Structure and Phenomenal Event” in Huayan Buddhism and Cheng-Zhu Neo- Confucianism, but also analyze the characteristics of the genesis, development, and thought of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism from a perspective integrating the history of thought and social history, which one could call the Marxist paradigm of research into Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism. One could also call the part about Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism in Ren Jiyu’s Zhongguo Zhexue Shi the important fruit of such research into Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism using the paradigm of Marxist theory. However, along with emphasizing the conflict between two lines of thought, materialism and idealism, dialectics and metaphysics, and the formulae of “materialism equals dialectics equals representing the interests of the progressive class” and “idealism equals metaphysics equals representing the interests of the reactive class,” politicization and dogmatiza- tion throughout Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucian studies was, as such, unavoidable; consequently, Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism was stamped with the political trademark of “objective idealism,” encountering criticism. In the second stage, there was one book entitled Cheng Hao Cheng Yi jiqi Sixiang Pipan 程颢程颐及其思想批判 [The Cheng Brothers and a Critique of Their Thought] (Zhengzhou: Henan People’s Press, 1974), one book entitled Cheng Hao Cheng Yi Yanlun Xuanpi 程颢程颐言论选批 [Selected Criticism of the Cheng Brothers’ Arguments] (Zhengzhou: Henan People’s Press 1975), and, altogether, fifty-four critical essays on Zhu Xi. The extreme leftist thought of the ten years of the Cultural Revolution could be described as the peak of ex- tremity; in the rush to “critique Legalism and critique Confucianism” along with their founders, Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism served as the opposite pole of Legalist thought and interchangeably wore the caps of idealism, metaphysics, reactionary conservative politics, and of representing the interests of the feudal bureaucracy and the landowning class; it went through the trials of ne- gation and critique, and was swept clean. Because of this, genuine academic research into Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism broke down entirely. In the thirty-odd years of reforming and opening up, research into Cheng- Zhu Neo-Confucianism in Mainland China underwent roughly two stages. The first stage occurred approximately between 1977 and 1990. The first summit on Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucian studies since the establishment of the New China that took place in 1981 in Hangzhou was the sign that Song Ming Neo-Confucian studies had entered a period of revival. During this period of revival, the study .

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