Controversies in Modern Chinese Intellectual History

Post-humanism has recently come to China and challenges traditional humanism and the humanities. The author first offers a reflection on the evolution of humanism in modern Chinese intellectual history. To the author, we are now in a ‘post-theoretical era’, in which the function of theory is no longer so powerful and ubiquitous as it used to be. It is then argued that the rise of the ‘post-humanist’ trend in the West during the past decades indicates that, in the present era, humankind is only one of many species on earth, whose existence and development, to a large extent, depend on natural law. At the same time, post-humanism tells us that humankind may no longer be able to control some of its own creations. The author concludes by calling for digital humanities to bridge the gap between science and humanities and to establish a new relationship between the two.

Download Full-text

The “Learning of Life”

Asian Studies ◽

10.4312/as.2020.8.3.35-61 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

pp. 35-61

Author(s):

Ady Van den Stock

Keyword(s):

Intellectual History ◽

Close Relation ◽

Social Conditions ◽

Left Behind ◽

Mou Zongsan ◽

Cultural Life ◽

The Social ◽

Chinese Intellectual ◽

Modern Chinese Intellectual History ◽

Philosophical Writings

While the twentieth-century Confucian thinker Mou Zongsan (1909–1995) has left behind one of the most thought-provoking and intensively studied bodies of philosophical writings in modern Chinese intellectual history, his own life and its relation to his philosophy (or “learning”), a theme at the centre of his Autobiography at Fifty from the mid-1950s, has so far remained largely unexamined. After some introductory remarks on the context and outlook of the Autobiography, my paper turns to the close relation between Mou’s conception of life and his approach to the “cultural life” of China as a nation. In doing so, I examine the notion of a distinctly Chinese (more precisely, Confucian) “learning of life” in his writing and explore the motif of “life in itself” running through the Autobiography. I argue that this motif is crucial for gaining a better understanding of Mou’s relation to his teacher Xiong Shili (1885–1968), his own father, the social conditions of his childhood in rural Shandong, as well as his overall approach to subjectivity as a space for articulating socio-political concerns.

Download Full-text

From Religion to Revolution…and Nationalism

Asian Studies ◽

10.4312/as.2019.7.1.173-199 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 173-199

Author(s):

Ady VAN DEN STOCK

Keyword(s):

Intellectual History ◽

Historical Materialism ◽

Modern China ◽

Muslim Identity ◽

Complex Relation ◽

Chinese Intellectual ◽

Religion And Ethnicity ◽

Modern Chinese Intellectual History ◽

Contemporary Chinese

The work of the Marxist historian Jamāl al-Dīn Bai Shouyi (1909–2000), a member of the Chinese Muslim Hui ethnic group, offers a window into the close and complex relation between the contested categories of politics, religion, and ethnicity in modern Chinese intellectual history, particularly with respect to the historical development of Chinese Muslim identity in its encounter with Marxist historical materialism. In this article, I provide a limited case study of this broader problematic by analysing Bai’s writings on Hui identity. In doing so, I attempt to contextualise his arguments with reference to the changing status of religion in contemporary Chinese Marxist discourse, and reflect on the entanglement of nationalism, religion, and ethnopolitics in modern China.

Download Full-text

Wennei Wenwai: Zhongguo Sixiang Shi Zhong de Jingdian Quanshi (Intratextual and Extratextual: Interpretations of Chinese Classics in Chinese Intellectual History).By Lo Yuet-Keung . (Taipei:Taida Chuban Zhongxin, 2010. vii, 427 Pp. Paperback, ISBN 978-986-02-3705-4.)

Journal of Chinese Philosophy ◽

10.1163/15406253-03901013 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 39 (1) ◽

pp. 160-162

Author(s):

Tze-Ki Hon

Keyword(s):

Intellectual History ◽

Chinese Intellectual

Download Full-text

2 New Confucian Thought in the Context of Twentieth-Century Chinese Intellectual History: Historical (Dis)continuity and Philosophy

The Horizon of Modernity ◽

10.1163/9789004301108_004 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 104-196

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Intellectual History ◽

Chinese Intellectual ◽

Confucian Thought

Download Full-text

XUNZI'S CRITICISM OF ZISI—NEW PERSPECTIVES

Early China ◽

10.1017/eac.2014.3 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 37 ◽

pp. 291-325 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Kuan-yun Huang

Keyword(s):

Detailed Analysis ◽

Intellectual History ◽

Chinese Intellectual ◽

Intimate Knowledge

AbstractThis study considers Xunzi's criticism of Zisi, Confucius' grandson, providing a detailed analysis of some of the most famous but also difficult passages in the Xunzi. By drawing on the newly excavated text, “Wuxing” (The five conducts), the study shows that not only did Xunzi have an intimate knowledge of Zisi's teachings, but in fact he had available to him a certain version of the “Wuxing.” This understanding makes it possible to evaluate Xunzi's role as a reporter of Zisi's teachings, and to the extent that Xunzi reported these teachings fairly and accurately, the study offers specific suggestions for reimagining a period that has been little understood in Early Chinese intellectual history, or the transition from Confucius to Mencius.

Download Full-text