Confucianism.

« IV NEO-CONFUCIANISM After centuries of intellectual and cultural dominance by Buddhism, China began to experience a revival of Confucian thought during the Tang dynasty ( AD 618-907).

It was led by poet and essayist Han Yu (Han Yü).

Han Yu attacked Buddhism and Daoism, which he believed had kept government officials from seeing how they couldhelp the people.

To further public welfare, he urged them to study the way of the ancient sages through the Five Classics .

Han Yu almost lost his life for daring to criticize the emperor’s acceptance of Buddhism. This anti-Buddhist and anti-Daoist revival of Confucianism came to be known as Daoxue (Tao-hsueh, “The Study of the Way”).

It is commonly called neo-Confucianism in the West.

Neo-Confucians believed that they were merely defending and clarifying what was implicit in the Confucian classics.

However, their interpretations were oftendeeply colored by Buddhism.

For example, where Mencius spoke of “sprouts” of virtue that had to be carefully cultivated to grow to maturity, Neo-Confucians believedthat all humans share a fully formed virtuous nature whose existence is obscured by selfish desires.

This belief is very similar to the Buddhist view that we must uncoverour shared Buddha-nature. A Cheng Yi and Cheng Hao Two brothers, Cheng Yi and Cheng Hao, developed a systematic basis for neo-Confucianism in the 11th century.

They argued that everything in existence has twoaspects, qi or “stuff,” and li, which can be thought of as pattern or structure, although the standard translation is “principle.” All of the li, or structure, is fully present in each thing that exists, they claimed.

But things are differentiated by the clarity of their qi.

Humans have clearer qi than dogs, and a dog has clearer qi than a sunflower.

Things of the same general kind are also distinguished by the level of clarity of their qi.

So, although we are both humans, a sage like Confucius has much clearer qi than do I.

Nonetheless, both Confucius and I have more clear qi than an ant. B Zhu Xi The most famous and influential neo-Confucian was Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi), a 12th-century philosopher noted for his long-lasting synthesis and exposition of earlierphilosophies.

Zhu Xi adopted the system of the Cheng brothers, and his brand of neo-Confucianism is referred to as the Cheng-Zhu School or the Study of Principleschool.

Zhu Xi also made the revolutionary suggestion of switching the educational curriculum away from the Five Classics to what came to be known as the Four Books : the Lunyu (Analects) , the Daxue (Great Learning) , the Mengzi (Book of Mencius), and the Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean) .

The Four Books are collections of the sayings of Confucius and Mencius and the commentaries of their followers. Zhu Xi believed that the qi of most people is so turbid (unclear) initially that they cannot rely upon their inclinations to guide them to do what is right.

However, studying the classic texts, along with meditation and ritual practice, will help people clarify their qi, so that they can eventually rely on their own intuitions.

Zhu Xi also thought that students were unlikely to understand the classics without help, so he wrote clear, concise, insightful commentaries on these books. In 1313, the Four Books , as interpreted by Zhu Xi’s commentary, became the basis of the Chinese civil service examinations.

These exams were the gateway to a powerful and lucrative position in China’s government bureaucracy.

Although the examinations were abolished in 1905, Zhu Xi’s views are still considered to representorthodox Confucianism by many traditional scholars. Zhu Xi’s views have had many critics.

Zhu Xi debated another 12th century philosopher, Lu Xiangshan, who shared many of Zhu Xi’s views on qi and li.

But Lu Xiangshan argued that because human nature is already fully good, behavior and emotions that are spontaneous and unforced will be virtuous.

“The classics are[merely] my footnotes,” Lu quipped. C Wang Yangming Lu’s criticisms were championed in the early 16th century by Wang Yangming, a general and statesman.

Wang Yangming’s most famous slogan was “the unity ofknowledge and action.” By this he meant that anyone who genuinely knows what is virtuous will act virtuously, and anyone who fails to act virtuously does not reallyknow what is virtuous. Wang accused Zhu Xi of advising students first to obtain knowledge of virtue through studying the Four Books , and only to act virtuously later.

Wang charged that this approach produced pedants who would only study and theorize about virtue, rather than actually be virtuous.

Wang argued that our mind is pure principle ( li), so we can trust our own judgment, as long as we are careful to identify and extinguish selfish thoughts that interfere with our mind’s functioning.

Wang’s brand of neo-Confucianism is referred to as the Lu-Wang School, or the Study of the Mind school. All neo-Confucians believe that Mencius correctly explained the teachings of Confucius.

However, the disagreement between the Cheng-Zhu and the Lu-Wang versionsof neo-Confucianism parallels, in some ways, the disagreement between Xunzi’s and Mencius’s philosophies over human nature, Xunzi claiming that it was bad andMencius that it was good.

Xunzi and Cheng-Zhu both emphasize the study of classic texts as a method of ethical cultivation, while Mencius and Lu-Wang emphasizefollowing one’s own ethical sense. D Dai Zhen During the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), many Confucians came to believe that the Cheng-Zhu and Lu-Wang philosophers misread the Confucian classics through a failureto pay careful attention to the original texts and their historical contexts.

One of these critics was Dai Zhen (Tai Chen), who lived in the 18th century.

Dai Zhen providedclear evidence that neo-Confucians had given Buddhist or Daoist meanings to terms in the Five Classics .

He rejected, for example, the neo-Confucian view of li (“principle”) as an aspect of being.

He said it meant only good order or pattern in an ethical sense.

He urged new study of the Classics. V CONTEMPORARY CONFUCIANISM During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Chinese thinkers rejected Confucianism in favor of Western movements such as Marxism ( see Karl Marx) or the pragmatism of American philosopher and educator John Dewey.

This rejection arose from the military and economic weakness of China in the face of aggression andexploitation on the part of Japan and Western nations.

Lu Xun and other writers who took part in the May Fourth Movement in 1919, in particular, identifiedConfucianism as one of the cultural sources of China’s problems and its failure to modernize. However, others believed Confucianism could be reformed and again become a viable contemporary worldview.

Most of these thinkers sought to synthesize neo-Confucianism with some Western philosophy.

Feng Youlan (Fung Yu-lan) studied philosophy in the United States, before returning to China in the 1920s.

He developed asynthesis of Cheng-Zhu neo-Confucianism and the philosophy of Plato.

Chinese Marxist Liu Shaoqi (Liu Shao-ch’i) synthesized Confucian self-cultivation philosophy withMarxist political philosophy.

During China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the Chinese government encouraged citizens to reject Confucianism completely.

Feng was. »