Studies in Early Modern and Modern Chinese Philosophy*

Chapter 7 Studies in Early Modern and Modern Chinese Philosophy*

Translated by Joanna Guzowska

7.1 Research in Early Modern Philosophy

Western intellectual culture made its way into China after 1840, in the wake of Western military and economic expansion. It had an immense impact on Chinese politics, society, and lifestyle as well as the Chinese mode of think- ing and worldview. However, its influence on philosophical thought came relatively late—early modern Chinese philosophy, best represented by Kang Youwei 康有为, Liang Qichao 梁启超, Tan Sitong 谭嗣同, and Sun Yat-sen 孙中山, only formed in the 1870s. The philosophy of Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Tan Sitong, and Sun Zhongshan stemmed from their deep engagement with traditional Chinese philosophy and their innovative integration of elements borrowed from Western thought. Its goal was to respond to the grave sociopo- litical problems and global challenges faced by China at the time. Now, it marks the pinnacle of early modern Chinese philosophy and occupies an important place in the history of Chinese philosophy in general. As such, it has enjoyed much scholarly attention since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Research into Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Tan Sitong, and Sun Zhongshan’s thought following 1949 can be divided into two stages: the early stage between 1949 and 1980, and the late stage from 1980 until the present. Most scholarly work in the early stage was completed in the 1950s and 1960s, as academic research was put on pause during the period of the Cultural Revolution. As is well known, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Tan Sitong, and Sun Zhongshan were not only prominent philosophers but also eminent politicians and social activists whose impact on the history of early modern and modern China can

* Translator’s note: I use the expression “early modern” to translate the Chinese term jindai (近代) which refers to the period between the Opium Wars and the 1919 May Fourth Movement. The term “modern” is used to render xiandai 现代.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004360495_009 308 Chapter 7 hardly be overstated. Their intellectual output has been studied extensively over the last sixty years. However, the relevant research has mostly been car- ried out from the historical and political perspective. Here, the discussion will be restricted to its philosophical dimension. The main works on Kang Youwei written in the early stage include:

Li Zehou’s 李泽厚 Kang Youwei Tan Sitong Sixiang Yanjiu 康有为谭嗣同思想 • 研究 [A Study of Kang Youwei and Tan Sitong’s Thought] (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press, 1958); He Shuangsheng’s 何双生 Kang Youwei 康有为 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, • 1959); Song Yunbin’s 宋云彬 Kang Youwei 康有为 (Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing, • 1955); and Shen Yunlong’s 沈云龙 Kang Youwei Pingzhuan 康有为评传 [A Critical • Biography of Kang Youwei] (Beijing: Biographical Literature Publishing House, 1978).

The last three books focus on Kang’s life and touch on his philosophical thought only indirectly. The first work to engage in an extensive study of Kang’s intellectual output was Li Zehou’s Kang Youwei Tan Sitong Sixiang Yanjiu. It is based on a series of articles dedicated to Kang Youwei’s philosophical thought published by Li around 1957 in Philosophical Researches, the Journal of Literature, History and Philosophy, and Xin Jianshe. The book pro- vides an overall discussion of Kang’s notion of “original qi” (yuan qi lun 元气论), his naturalist conception of human nature (ziran renxing lun 自然人性论), his philosophy of the Three Stages of History (gong yang san shi 公羊三世), his utopian vision of Great Unity (da tong 大同), and his political ideal of Traditionally Embedded Reform (tuo gu gai zhi 托古改制). In the book, Li suggests that Kang’s original qi (which spans electricity and ether, on the one hand, and hun 魂 spirit, knowledge, and humaneness, on the other) is a mixture of materialism and idealism. Li admits that Kang’s conception of human nature, as well as his political and historical thought, is anti-feudal but he also highlights its bourgeois utopianism and superficiality. It is now apparent that Li, like others, applied the materialism-versus-idealism frame- work and the method of class analysis in his discussion of Kang Youwei’s philosophy. However, he did so with more flexibility and combined it with textual research and analysis, which yielded a relatively persuasive whole. Li’s scholarship on Kang Youwei may be said to reflect the research quality of the period. Apart from specialized literature, Zhongguo Sixiang Tongshi 中国思想通史 [A General History of Chinese Thought], edited by Hou Wailu