China & East Asia · 1920s – today
New Confucianism
Confucian moral metaphysics can be renewed in dialogue with Western philosophy and can ground a Chinese modernity that includes science and democracy.
Can Confucian thought survive and guide modern China?
The May Fourth Movement of 1919 attacked Confucianism as the root of China’s weakness, and Western science and democracy seemed to make it obsolete. Liang Shuming, Xiong Shili and Feng Youlan responded, and after 1949 Mou Zongsan and others carried the project on in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Science answers questions of fact but not of value and meaning. Confucian learning of mind and nature offers a “moral metaphysics” grounded in the moral mind. So China can adopt science and democracy while keeping Confucianism as its spiritual core; Mou argued the moral mind can limit itself to make room for them.
- Moral experience reveals the metaphysical reality of the mind.
- Cultures differ in orientation, not merely in stage of development.
- Confucianism can “open out” science and democracy.
It shaped Confucian studies in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the diaspora, notably through the 1958 Manifesto for Chinese Culture, and fed the revival of Confucianism in mainland China since the 1980s.
Thinkers
1885–1968Xiong ShiliFounder of New Confucian metaphysics1893–1988Liang ShumingPhilosopher and rural reformer, called “the last Confucian”1895–1990Feng YoulanHistorian of Chinese philosophy and builder of a “new principle learning”1909–1995Mou ZongsanLeading second-generation New Confucian and translator of KantKey texts
Where it came from
Grew out ofSchool of Mind (Lu–Wang school)Xiong Shili and Mou Zongsan placed the Lu–Wang teaching of the moral mind at the heart of their renewed Confucianism.Grew out of
Neo-Confucianism (Cheng–Zhu school)Feng Youlan rebuilt Cheng–Zhu principle learning with modern logic in his “new principle learning”.Borrowed from
Kant’s critical philosophyMou Zongsan translated Kant’s three Critiques and framed Confucian ethics as completing what Kant left open: intellectual intuition of the moral self.Reacted against
YogācāraXiong Shili’s New Treatise on Consciousness-Only began from Yogācāra and then rejected its split between true reality and changing phenomena.