History of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism (Part 1)

Author: Hou Wailu
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-04-01
Features: Committed to publishing academic books in China has always been our consistent purpose. In the field of the history of philosophy, with the strong support of generations of experts and scholars, we have published many significant works that hold academic value and rich intellectual treasures. To make them more systematic and comprehensive, facilitating research and reference for scholars old and new, and contributing to cultural heritage, we have compiled these books into the Library of Philosophers. Philosophy is the "living soul of civilization" (Marx). We hope the Library of Philosophers can contribute, however modestly, to the prosperity of philosophy and the progress of civilization. We also expect this series to continuously add new works.
In 1959, when we compiled the fourth volume of A General History of Chinese Thought, we began researching the Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming dynasties. Due to the constraints of the book's format and length, we could not elaborate on this part, merely sketching out a few representative Neo-Confucian scholars. At that time, I began to contemplate compiling A History of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism to elucidate the emergence and evolution of Neo-Confucianism and its role in the history of Chinese thought, creating a specialized work distinct yet connected to the broader intellectual history. It was not until two decades later that we began executing this research plan.
After completing the second volume of An Outline of the History of Chinese Thought in 1980, Comrade Qiu Hansheng had already drafted the chapter titles and outline for A History of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism. We then organized a discussion with colleagues from the Research Room of Chinese Thought at the Institute of History, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and assigned chapters to different authors. During the era when the "Gang of Four" reigned supreme, Comrade Hansheng quietly studied many original materials on Neo-Confucianism under extremely perilous conditions, offering valuable insights into its emergence and evolution. Thus, he made significant contributions to the compilation of A History of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism.
After the "Gang of Four" was overthrown, the study of social sciences became vibrant. In recent years, numerous works on Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism have been published domestically, and we have also read research findings from overseas. These have served as inspiration for our compilation of A History of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism. After three years of effort, the first volume of A History of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism is now completed, and work on the second volume is underway.
Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming dynasties was the dominant ideology in the late feudal society, with "human nature and the Way of Heaven" as its central theme—a philosophical question that also touched upon politics, morality, education, and religion. Neo-Confucianism, primarily rooted in Confucianism, also absorbed ideas from Buddhism and Taoism. It emerged and developed as a new intellectual tradition on the foundation of the fusion and interpenetration of the three teachings (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism) during the Tang Dynasty. Neo-Confucianism permeated all aspects of late feudal social and political life, becoming an authoritative force that weighed heavily on the heads of the working people. Politically, it represented a turbid stream in the history of thought. Despite this, Neo-Confucianism assimilated vast amounts of traditional and foreign culture, marking a new stage in the history of thought after the pre-Qin philosophers, the Han Dynasty's Confucian classics, the Wei-Jin period's metaphysics, and the Tang Dynasty's Buddhism. It contains valuable content worthy of reference and requires careful scrutiny with Marxist perspectives and methods, rather than being dismissed outright.
Therefore, in this work, we do not merely describe the thoughts of individual Neo-Confucian scholars in isolation but attempt to elucidate the historical process of the emergence and evolution of Neo-Confucianism and the roles played by its scholars in this process. Neo-Confucianism is divided into two major schools: the Cheng-Zhu school and the Lu-Wang school of mind. They debated and interpenetrated with each other, and a trend toward their convergence emerged. This intellectual evolution is one of our key research focuses.
As is well known, Zhu Xi was the synthesizer of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism. It was only through Zhu Xi that Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism established its vast academic scale and unique system, influencing the development of intellectual thought for five or six hundred years thereafter, with its echoes still resonating today. This raises a series of important questions: What were the historical reasons for the formation of Neo-Confucianism? How did Zhu Xi achieve this synthesis? Why did Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism exert such a profound influence in the late feudal society of China? How did Wang Shouren's school of mind arise? Why did Neo-Confucianism decline during the Ming-Qing transition? How does the internal logic of Neo-Confucianism's development relate to the broader social context of its time? We have offered our own perspectives on these questions, presenting them to the academic community for reference and discussion.
It should also be noted that in a specialized work on the history of Neo-Confucianism, it is not enough to focus solely on the renowned scholars. There are also many less-known figures who played significant roles in the evolution of Neo-Confucianism or in the transmission of its intellectual lineage, and their historical contributions must not be overlooked. The study of Yuan Dynasty Neo-Confucianism has long been neglected. In reality, there is no shortage of materials on Yuan Dynasty Neo-Confucianism, and its evolution and development are quite clear. In this monograph, we have dedicated a separate chapter to this topic. I believe that only by understanding the characteristics of Yuan Dynasty Neo-Confucianism can we grasp how Song Dynasty Neo-Confucianism transitioned through this intermediate stage to become Ming Dynasty Neo-Confucianism.
Furthermore, the related field of mathematical metaphysics must not be ignored. In summary, the history of Neo-Confucianism is neither a collection of biographies of its scholars nor a few chapters in a general history of thought, but rather a historical account of intellectual evolution shaped by the specific conditions of the Song and Ming dynasties, with its own distinct characteristics. In this work, we attempt to capture this historical process, but due to limitations in our capabilities, we may not have fully succeeded, and shortcomings and errors are inevitable.
I believe that to accurately portray the emergence and evolution of Neo-Confucianism in line with historical reality, researchers who guide their work with Neo-Confucian thought and write about Neo-Confucianism from a Neo-Confucian perspective cannot reveal the true nature of historical development and may even distort the process. If one merely stays at the level of progressive scholars in the feudal society, like Huang Zongxi or Quanzuwang, at most, they could compile works like A Record of Confucian Schools from Song to Yuan, which, while remarkable in the Qing Dynasty, are merely historical compilations and far from a scientific history of thought or a scientific history of Neo-Confucianism. The ancients had their own historical limitations. We must inherit the fine legacy of our predecessors while also innovating and advancing.
If we adopt bourgeois historical perspectives and methods to write works like Liang Qichao's A History of Recent Three Centuries of Chinese Scholarship, it would still not qualify as a scientific history of Neo-Confucianism. Our research must be strictly guided by Marxist theory. Marxism is a scientific worldview and methodology. Over the past sixty years since the May Fourth Movement, the history of China has proven that only by guiding historical research with Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought can it become a science. Only by doing so can we study the history of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism and restore it to its true form, enabling us to understand its role and significance in the history of Chinese thought.
Of course, in practical research, whether one can accurately apply Marxist methods to analyze historical issues depends on academic discussion, where strengths can be exchanged, and errors corrected.