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Liang Shuming’s China: the Country of Reason (1967–1970): revolution, religion, and ethnicity in the reinvention of the Confucian tradition

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Abstract

Liang Shuming’s 梁漱溟 (1893–1988) China: the Country of Reason (Zhongguo: lixing zhi guo 中国:理性之国) is a little-known, posthumously published manuscript composed between 1967 and 1970 during the Cultural Revolution. It offers a unique perspective on Liang’s philosophical attempt to reconcile the Communist revolutionary legacy with the Confucian tradition that he continued to uphold in mainland China after the founding of the People’s Republic. By presenting and analyzing the main themes and concepts of this book, I try to cast some light on Liang’s idiosyncratic repurposing of historical materialist concepts in reinterpreting what he takes to be “early enlightenment” accomplished through the Confucian celebration of “reason” (lixing 理性) and its “replacement of religion by morality.” In doing so, I explore the complex relations between revolutionary, religious, and ethnic identity in his late philosophy.

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Notes

  1. This is also the case in another unpublished manuscript entitled The Great Development and Manifestation of Humanity’s Creative Power: An Attempt to Explain the Causes behind the Rapid Progress in all Constructive Endeavors in the Ten Years since the Founding of Our Country (Renlei chuangzaoli de da fahui da biaoxian: shi shuoming jianguo shi nian yi qie jianshe tufei mengjin de youlai 人类创造力的大发挥大表现——试说明建国十年一切建设突飞猛进的由来), intermittently composed between 1959 and 1961 during the Great Leap Forward, see Liang [1959–1961] 1990.

  2. To give a few examples: in the work of Tang Junyi, the ultimate goal of philosophy is understood to consist in becoming a “teaching” (jiao 教) which can effectively transform human existence and society at large in a spiritually and morally beneficial manner (for a detailed study, see Van den Stock forthcoming 1). On his part, Tang’s one-time teacher Fang Dongmei 方東美 (Thomé H. Fang, 1899–1977) believed that Chinese philosophy espouses a “transcendental-immanent metaphysics” in which “there is no abrupt breach between reality and appearances,” an outlook embodying what he calls the “organismic” nature of ancient Chinese religion, which expressed itself in a “reverence for life in this world of ours.” According to Fang, “ever since the 23rd century B.C., in the time of Yao, rational culture had brilliantly dawned upon the Chinese. Thenceforward, the nature of God and the essence of man came to be seen in the light of day […] Hence it is clear that rational religion had early emerged in ancient China in contrast to the supremacy of mysticism” (Fang 1981, p. 69). According to Xu Fuguan 徐復觀 (1904–1982), a veritable “humanization of religion” (宗教之人文化) resulting in a fusion of morality and religion took place as early as the Spring and Autumn Period (771-476 BCE). Xu considers this to be “the necessary and ultimate form of religion, as well as the necessary avenue for the future [development of] religion itself.” (最高級宗教的必然形態,也是宗教自身今後必然的進路) (Xu [1962] 2001, pp. 31–32). For Tu Wei-ming 杜維明 (b. 1940), Confucian philosophy is home to a form of religiosity realized within the interrelations between the self, the community, and the transcendent. Tu propagates a form of “inclusive humanism” which does not simply jettison transcendence as a symbol of heteronomy, but entails an “anthropocosmic vision” in which “Humanity is Heaven’s form of self-disclosure, self-expression, and self-realization” (Tu 1989, p. 102). Similarly, for Liu Shu-hsien 劉述先 (1934–2016), Confucius can be characterized as a “radical humanist” and a “deeply religious person” at the same time (Liu 1971, p. 157).

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers, Joseph Ciaudo, Yim Fong Chan, and Julia C. Schneider for their comments and suggestions and Suzanne Murphy for proofreading the text.

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Research for this article was supported by a grant from the Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds (BOF, Special Research Fund) at Ghent University.

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  1. Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Ady Van den Stock

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Van den Stock, A. Liang Shuming’s China: the Country of Reason (1967–1970): revolution, religion, and ethnicity in the reinvention of the Confucian tradition. Int. Commun. Chin. Cult 7, 603–620 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40636-020-00195-w

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