Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences
World Forum on China Studies
Selected Papers from the 2nd World Forum on China Studies
(Abstracts)
Panel 11
Transitional Trends from Sinology to China Studies
Contents:
1. Development in China Study Abroad and Appellation of This Discipline
By Peizhong He (China)
2. An Order That Takes Care of the Individual. What Can We Vindicate from
Confucius?
By Gerardo Lopez (Spain)
3. China as Means, While the World as the Aim
By Jilin Xu (China)
4. The Role and Value of Confucian Civilization in the Dialogue Among World
Civilizations
By Liwen Zhang (China)
5. To Strengthen the Studies of Sino-logical History and Recognize the History
of Ourselves Better
By Zhenhe Zhou (China)
6. The Methodology of Confucian Studies
By Weizheng Zhu (China)
Panel 11
Transitional Trends from Sinology to China Studies100
1) Development in China Study Abroad and Appellation of This Discipline
------ By Peizhong He (China)
Abstracts:
China studies abroad were initiated while foreign countries had contacts and cognition
with Chinese civilization. For a long time, Chinese academe lacks a unitive title for
this kind of study; sometimes we call it “sinology” or “foreign sinology”; sometimes
call “China Studies” or “China Studies Abroad”. After 1980s, with the speedy
development of Chinese economy, there is an upsurge in studying on China within the
world scale. Chinese academe has paid necessary attention on the appellation of
discipline as well as the emergence and development of this upsurge in order to do
well in this discipline.
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2) An Order That Takes Care of the Individual. What Can We Vindicate from
Confucius?
------ By Gerardo Lopez (Spain)
Abstracts:
Let me begin my abstract with a long quotation: In China, the Confucians have based
their teachings on their ethical norms. Sons and wives possess neither personal
individuality nor personal property. Fathers and elders brothers bring up their sons
and younger brothers and are in turn supported by them. It is said in chapter thirty of
the Record of Rites that ‘While parents are living, the son dares not regard his person
or property as his own’ (27: 14). This is absolutely not the way to personal
independence … In all modern constitutional states, whether monarchies or republics,
there are political parties. Those who engage in party activities all express their spirit
of independent conviction. They go their own way and need not agree with their
fathers or husbands. When people are bound by the Confucian teachings of filial piety
and obedience to the point of the son not deviate from the father’s way even three
years after his death and the women not only obeying her father and husband but also
her son, how can they form their own political party or make their own choice? … /
Confucius lived in a feudal age. The ethics he promoted are the ethics of the feudal
age. The social mores he taught and even his own mode of living were teachings and
modes of a feudal age. The objectives, ethics, social norms, mode of living and
political institutions did not go beyond the privilege and prestige of a few rulers and
aristocrats and had nothing to do with the happiness of the great masses.” This was
written in 1916 by Chen Duxiu, who subsequently became a founder of the Chinese
Communist Party, and represents a very common interpretation of what Confucianism
is: an ideology based in the importance of the family, of communal ties, and of
hierarchy and authority The interesting point is that these same characteristics or
features that made that Confucianism was rejected at the beginning of the XX Century
are the ideas that make it exalted in our own time. According to a widespread
interpretation Confucianism would be responsible for the economic success of
Singapore, Hong Kong, mainland China and even Korea, and for the capacity of these
societies for generating social order without some of the problems that besiege
“decadent” western societies. I don’t aim so high as to try to explain the cultural
reasons of this economic success and I want to say from this very beginning of my
article that there are a lot of things that I admire in these countries, but (and I would
say that this is a very important “but”) reading Confucius I don’t see any reason to
support this interpretation as the only one available. On the contrary, I am going to
argue that Confucius proposes the view of human beings as moral agents that have to
behave according to their own individual thinking and reflection. In Analects, I, 4, one
of his disciples says: “Have I passed on to others anything that I have not tried out
myself?” And in Analects, XIII, 23, Confucius says: “The gentleman agrees with
others without being an echo.” That is, when one agrees with others it is because
using his (today we will say “his or her”) own understanding he (or she) has arrived at
the same conclusions. In Analects, XV, 16, he is quite explicit: “When a man is not in
the habit of saying: What shall I think of this? What shall I think of this? I can indeed
do nothing with him.” In this sense it is clear that he believes in moral autonomy and
in human equality. Contrary to what a lot of scholars think, he is not a communitarian
thinker; he is a philosopher who wants people to think by themselves. From this early
time in the History of China he was proposing what Socrates defended in Athens; the
importance of an internal moral conscience. In the case of Socrates of a “daimon”
who tells us how we have to behave (to be more specific: what we don’t have to do).
So, if we can speak about Enlightenment in the Greek world, we can say that
Confucius was an enlightenment figure in the Chinese world. We have to remember
that he was the first Master in the Chinese culture, the first to teach publicly to anyone
who was willing to learn. “The Master said, ‘From the man bringing his bundle of
dried flesh for my teaching upwards, I have never refused instruction to any one.”
(Analects, VII, 7, Legge). And in Analects, XV, 38: “The Master said, “In teaching
there should be no distinction of classes’”. In fact, this teaching wanted to be
universal in the most genuine sense, as it was presupposed than every human being,
not only the Chinese, were capable of learning. See Analects, IX, 13. According to all
the quotations we have used I believe we can conclude that Confucius is not a good
example to argue for “Asian Values”. On the contrary, Confucius presents a
universalistic theory that strengthens the position of the individual and of his or her
self-cultivation. Once we know this the (necessary) Dialogue between Chinese culture
and other cultures can be more easy and rewarding. This is the thesis I would like to
propose. Confucius arrives at important conclusions: agnosticism (we will have to
prove it), a common human nature that can be developed through education and that
one of the objectives of this education is that individuals can think by themselves
(what incidentally reminds me of the Kant’s idea in what is Enlightenment? Sapere
Aude). Should we not defend its importance for the XXI Century?
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3) China as Means, While the World as the Aim
------ By Jilin Xu (China)
Abstracts:
It is well known that the common trait of Japanese Sinologists is to lay more emphasis
on textual criticism of the historical data and sorting of historical facts, but lack of
sketch construct in and the thinking of analysis. For such a background, Yuzo
Mizoguchi looks very prominent in his Japanese collogues. He majored in history of
Chinese Thought. On one hand, he succeeded the rigorous scholarship of the Japanese
academic community; on the other hand, he placed great emphasis on digging out the
inside information of the thought and exploration of macroscopic framework, and so
Li Ze-hou said without exaggeration that Yuzo Mizoguchi is most thoughtful among
all the Japanese Sinologists. Yuzo Mizoguchi has achieved acknowledged
achievements in the history of Chinese Thought, and what’s more, he can
purposefully reflect in the conceptions and methodology of Sinological studies, while
most of Japanese scholars can not. In 1989, Yuzo Mizoguchi published his important
works, China as Means, (the name of Chinese version is Sinology in the Japanese). It
attracted a lot of attention and warm reaction in the Japanese academic circle. The
works of Yuzo Mizoguchi has been introduced to Chinese academic circle since the
1990s. His grand trait of thought and profound thought not only provided us with fuel
for thinking, but provided an immense space for Chinese scholars to dialogue with
him.
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4) The Role and Value of Confucian Civilization in the Dialogue Among World
Civilizations
------ By Liwen Zhang (China)
Abstracts:
In a multi-political, economic and cultural context, civilization in the world also is
pluralistic. Co-living, co-existing, co-constructing and co-developing, or conflicting,
confronting, fighting to the bitter end in this earth with multi-civilizations, it is a
choice that must be made by humankind. What attitude and principles must have the
humankind when making choice? I think Chinese Confucian thought can provide a
way to resolve conflicts and crisis. I. A Modern Explanation on Civilization The
existence of multi-civilizations has been a fact for thousands years and cannot be
changed by anyone until now. Our claim is to hold a dialogue among various
civilizations on co-living and co-existing but to refuse fighting to the bitter end.
Dialogue is an interactive exchange. Russell said: “Exchange among different
civilizations in the past has proved for many times milestones for human civilization’s
development”. Confrontation is an obstacle to exchange and sorrow of civilization
and would cause civilization’s destruction. II. A Outline of Confucian Civilization
Confucius is the founder of Confucian culture and a humanist teacher, standing in
heaven and earth with his humanist thought. He is a thinker, politician and
educationist, who has given greatest, longest and deepest influences on Chinese
ceremony and music culture, political culture, institutional culture, ethic and morality,
the way to think, value and conception, custom and habits. His thought is very broad
and profound, wise and fine and has a doctrine of the mean, a lofty metaphysical
value as well as a concrete practical value for common people, thereby is a crystal of
essences of Chinese ancient thoughts.
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5) To Strengthen the Studies of Sino-logical History and Recognize the History
of Ourselves Better
------ By Zhenhe Zhou (China)
Abstracts:
The name of Sinology has ever been replaced by China Studies. Sinology turned to be
the hot point again in recent years, the studies of Sino-logical history also became the
attractive subject. It seems that most of the current academic achievements of China
studies or Chinese studies are contemporary-oriented and practical, while the studies
of Sinology and Sino-logical history pay more attention to the ancient and modern
China and so purely academic. In the last two decades, not only the academic circle
recognized the Chinese over more profoundly, but their viewpoints on the
development of course world history is different from the past, which, in my opinion,
the study of Sino-logical history play an important role. We used to recognize China
and world according to own historical literature, namely recognize ourselves
according to own literature. But the studies of Sino-logical history can tell us how the
outer world recognizes Chinese culture. We Chinese always lay emphasis on
“drawing lessons from history”. It is indeed a good tradition, but we often draw
lessons from our own history. Not only we know little about the foreign history, but
we seldom know how the foreigners regard our history. In these years, many of works
such as Silver Capital and Big Distributaries published. These works tried to compare
the history of Europe with that of China. There are many different viewpoints that we
haven’t even thought of. Although we don’t necessarily agree with these viewpoints,
we have to face up to them because these viewpoints are helpful to recognize our own
history. In the same way, have we delved into the works about China written by those
missionaries, diplomats and businessmen stayed in China since the 16th century?
Particularly their works in the early stage, the relevant studies were seldom. The first
reason is that we lack of various talents majoring in foreign languages, not to mention
those talents well versed in both foreign languages and history. Such a condition can
tell us nothing but that we always lay more emphasis on reality and applied research,
while the academic research, especially the purely academic research has often been
ignored. It seems that this kind of purely academic research is not very urgent and
important, but as a matter of fact, this kind of viewpoint is not right. In the past
Chinas national strength of is very limited, and so the academic teams were not very
strong, while the funds for academic research was also very little, therefore we could
only firstly learn what we urgently need and those can produce instant results in order
to solve some practical problems. Nowadays, as the academic environment has
improved, the academic teams are becoming stronger and stronger, and the funds for
research has also been more sufficient, we should not be satisfied with those simple
and superficial achievements of the past. We can certainly recover the real and
complete history of China through full use of the descriptions by foreigners and our
own historical literatures. Generally speaking, the studies of Sino-logical history
should be composed of two aspects: one is to research how the foreigners perception
of China in the history, and we can find from various works of them; the other is to
what degree did the foreigners identify with Chinese culture, and it involves studies
on spreading of ancient and modern Chinese data throughout the world, and the
studies on Chinese data written by foreigners (mainly of East Asians) in Chinese. The
Sino-logical studies in the outer world have never suspended. After several hundred
years of efforts, these academic results have turned to be a tremendous treasure house.
But we knew little about its fertility and variety. What we have made use for research
is only a small part of these data, a part of English works and some of profiles which
have been officially published. The fundamental reason is that the academic
atmosphere is permeated with quick success and benefit, so do the individuals,
universities and research institutions. We don’t devote ourselves to the intensive
studies, but pursues the short-term visible achievements. In my opinion, we have to
avoid the idea of producing instant results, plan for the medium or long studies. We
have to begin from the studies of bibliography, know how the foreigners look upon us
in the past, and then can we recognize ourselves deeply. The Sino-logical studies
ought to be another Mirror which can warn us again. Only in this way can we
recognize our history and culture more deeply and comprehensively.
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6) The Methodology of Confucian Studies
------ By Weizheng Zhu (China)
Abstracts:
The Confucian studies have always evoked heated debates for a long a time. It shows
that the history of debates for almost one hundred years from the end of the Qing
Dynasty and the beginning of ROC to the “Cultural Revolution” ranged over almost
all fields such as humanities, social and political fields. What’s more, more and more
Sinologists of the west countries take part in the debates besides those of neighboring
countries such as Japan and Korea. The motive action of discussion is extremely
complicated. What a pity that there still isn’t a decent history book on Confucian
studies as the references for China and foreign learners in China. However, it is clear
that the domestic debates in the past 100 years or so centered on how to assess
Confucian and its political thoughts. Assessment means value judgment. It was very
popular in studies of historical figures in mainland of China during the past half
century. It is not just used in Confucian studies, but more prominent in such studies.
One of the reasons is political interference, i.e. the so-called “history serves the
politics”. It is well known that Mao Zedong made full use of this viewpoint in his old
age and so led to the serious chaos in Chinese cultural community. However, to bring
order out of chaos didn’t means to have wrong as right, or it will be closely linked
with the latter in methodology although it seems to be contrary to “Criticize
Confucius” campaign during China’s Cultural Revolution. Confucius belongs to the
history. We can not confuse the history of Confucius and the historical Confucius in
the science of history. How to assess Confucian has been discussed for more than
2000 years. As the result of negative discussion during the Cultural Revolution,
indeed we can strive for the status of Confucian in the world now; we can even say
that Confucianism initiated originated by Confucius will rule the world in the future.
However, is there no doubt in methodology for such viewpoint? No. The truth can be
set up through discussion. How about the effect if we promote the so-called
Confucianism authorized by political powers as the fundamentalism throughout the
world by means of powers, money or the ideological pressure? “The setbacks of the
processors should be taken as a warning after the Xia Dynasty (C.21st-C16 century
BC).” Consequently, it is necessary to mention of the methodology of Confucian
studies again for further discussion.
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Source: www.sass.org.cn 11/2006