Abstract
The present chapter contends that Qian Mu’s 錢穆 (1895–1990) major contribution to contemporary New Confucianism is the centrality of the notion of balance in his thought. Equally fundamental is Qian’s affirmation of the Confucian tradition. This chapter illustrates how these two concerns underscore his writings about the history of China and Chinese thought. The essence of Confucian thought to Qian is the autonomous moral virtue of the heart-mind and the consequent capacity for personal development. Both coexist with the maintenance of balance, between the inner and the outer, between self and community, and so on. This chapter demonstrates, as well, how Qian revitalized the discussion of Confucian core concerns such as benevolence, the relations between the one and the many, and the spiritual, by using the terms of memory, language, and emotions.
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Notes
- 1.
Balance in this essay refers to Chinese terms such as zhong 中 and he 和 and also to phrases for avoiding factions such as (budang 不黨).
- 2.
It has been suggested that in terms of quantity Qian Mu’s writings exceed those of any other scholar in Chinese history. See Du Zhengsheng 杜正勝 1995, quoted in Soffel (2013: 114–115), fn. 7.
- 3.
Hereafter, HSXSL. These essays are both scattered among Qian’s writings and collected in book form as in Qian (1987).
- 4.
- 5.
An earlier unpublished manuscript that contained patriotic content is mentioned in Soffel (2013: 115).
- 6.
Dewey lectured in China between 1919 and 1921. For his lectures see Dewey (1973).
- 7.
‘Study’ here very much in the sense of ‘education’. Compare with Yu Ying-shih’s recent call for “…Chinese historians to begin to design and develop their own concepts and methods uniquely suited to coping with the particular shapes of Chinese historical experience independent of, but not in isolation from, theories and practices of history in other parts of the world including the West” (Yu 2007: 49–50).
- 8.
Kongzi’s Analects (1918), Mengzi 孟子 (1926), Mozi 墨子, Huishi and Gong Sunlong 惠施公孫龍 (all published in 1931), and from the Ming period, Wang Shouren 王守仁 (Wang Yangming) (1930), among other works.
- 9.
- 10.
See chapter “Confucianism in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries”—Ed.
- 11.
- 12.
Beside Liang, another target of this criticism was Hu Shi.
- 13.
This ranking of Wang and Zhu reverses the appraisal shared by most of Qian’s contemporaries such as Xiong Shili 熊十力 (1883–1968) and Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–95).
- 14.
- 15.
An underlying assumption in the present essay concerns the interdependence of oneness and balance (or evenness).
- 16.
Significantly, as observed in Isay (2013b: 265), Qian’s non-dichotomous approach assigns a dichotomous approach to his cultural other.
- 17.
For a different view see Eber (1993).
- 18.
That same year (1944) Qian mentions the term Xinrujia (新儒家): “I often say that the contemporary Confucians (新儒家) are ‘New Confucians’ (新儒), to differentiate them from Kong and Meng….” (Qian 1944; Han 2005: 3.1636). This is one of the earliest mentions and definitions of this term. For comparison see the discussion in Makeham 2003, esp. pp. 25, 26.
- 19.
In the present essay, “polarity” is deemed interchangeable with “duality.”
- 20.
The chapter titles of the HSXSL are in themselves suggestive of the virtue of balance: (1) Humanity and Nature; (2) Spirit and Matter; (3) Emotions and Desires; (4) Pattern (li 理) and Qi; (5) Yin and Yang; (6) Art and Science; (7) No-self and Immortality; (8) Quality (chengse 成色) and Quantity (fenliang 分兩); (9) The Way (dao 道) and Fate (ming 命); (10) Good (shan 善) and Evil (e 惡); (11) Freedom and Involvement; (12) Struggle and Kindness; (13) The Rules of Propriety (li 禮) and the Law (fa 法); (14) Rush and Leisure; (15) Science and Life; (16) Self and Other; (17) Divinity and Wisdom; (18) Experience and Thought; (19) Spirits and Divinity; (20) The Countryside and the Urban; (21) Life and Consciousness; (22) The Imperceptible and the Perceptible; (23) History and Divinity; (24) Things and Outward Appearances; (25) Human Nature and Fate; (26) The Tense and the Loose; (27) The Deductive and the Conclusive; (28) Intuition and Intellect; (29) The Infinite and the Complete in Itself; (30) Values and the Mind of Kindness. Other such “meditative” essays appear randomly among Qian’s writings or collected in books such as Qian (1987).
- 21.
The following is a revised synopsis of Isay (2009).
- 22.
All three discussed aspects of memory, language and emotions, and were influential in China around the May Fourth protests (1919) and thereafter (Isay 2013a:53–65).
- 23.
Qian adds that the commentary is apparently subjective yet the subject itself is objectively given. From the point of view of the common agreement on names, their being is not merely subjective. Note how Qian here enlarges and brings up-to-date Kongzi’s rectification of names.
- 24.
On emotions as inseparable from reason in traditional Chinese thought see Solomon (1995).
- 25.
Accordingly, Qian emphasizes, pure and neutral reason is impossible.
- 26.
The discussion that follows on ti and yong revises a flaw that occurs in the broader discussion of memory, language, and emotions in Qian’s thought. See Isay (2009).
- 27.
Qian argues that unlike morality, science, art, religion, and literature are conditioned, as the requirements of science, art, religion, and literature go beyond human relations. Art depends on matter, science depends on objective reason, and religion depends on God. When Qian speaks of religion dependent on God, he is thinking of monotheistic religion. See chapters twenty-one and twenty-two in Qian (2001). For a study of Qian’s criticism of monotheist religion see Isay (2010).
- 28.
Note the convergence with the discussion of Kongzi in section four above.
- 29.
As Qian further observes, not only the positive remains; evil “mental remains” may too live on, and similarly be remembered and sometimes increase in the memory of future generations, though apparently such memories are limited. The ‘mental remains’ of those who acted wickedly and sowed destruction and calamity equally continue to exist, yet their extension and increase are limited to the negative level alone, a level that unmistakably does not invite the people’s support. These are bad spirits (gui 鬼) eventually bound to dissolve (Qian 2001: 109–110).
- 30.
Compare with chapter twenty-one, “Dissolving Delusions” (解蔽) in Xunzi.
- 31.
Note the allusion to Analects 11.16.
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Isay, G.C. (2021). Balanced Continuity: Qian Mu and Contemporary New Confucianism. In: Elstein, D. (eds) Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56475-9_9
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