Mencius, Xunzi, and the Third Stage of Confucianism

According to Karl Jaspers’s theory of the Axial age, many important cultures in the world experienced a “transcendental breakthrough” between 800 and 200 BCE; no more transformations occurred until Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, which eventually ushered in the modern era. The implication of this theory is that only the West had a second cultural breakthrough, thus rendering moot the discussion of a third Confucian epoch. But, in reality, Confucianism had a second breakthrough during the Song—Ming period (tenth to seventeenth centu-ries) and spread from China to East Asia; this new form of Confucianism is called “neo-Confucianism” by Western scholars. The third Confucian epoch is a forward-looking concept that uses the lexicon of Western science and democracy to trace Confucianism’s philosophical transformation from a Chinese tradition into a part of world culture, and the integration of Mencian and Xunzian thought has to be treated in this light. Faced with Western cultural challenges, modern Confucianism has bro-ken new ground in many ways. Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 is Mencian (as represented by Lu Xiangshan 陸象山 , Wang Yangming 王陽明 , and Liu Jishan 劉蕺山 ) in spirit and Xunzian (as represented by Zhu Xi 朱熹 ) in practice. Li Zehou 李澤厚 , by contrast, exhorts us to talk the Mencian talk but walk the Xunzian walk; this contradictory strat-agem, which he thinks will lead to a brighter and healthier future, only accentuates the power of Mencius 孟子 as a philosopher of the mind. Mencius and Xunzi 荀子 are very important in a modern deconstruction of Confucianism


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The Third Stage of Confucianism I believe that our conference today1 is both timely and necessary, as the distinguished Li Zehou 李澤厚 has recently proposed that we "raise the Mencian banner but practice the Xunzian philosophy,"2 and the indefatigable Professor Liang Tao 梁濤 has worked tirelessly to integrate Mencian and Xunzian thought. Whenever we talk about Mencius and Xunzi, the question of periodization invariably bubbles up to the surface. In December 1989, Fudan University held a symposium to discuss Confucianism and the future of Chinese society. It is remarkable that this symposium took place, and Li was invited to give a speech "Why I'm Not a Neo-Confucian," as he was thought to hew to neo-Confucianism at the time. I had first communicated with Li in 1978, and we had frequent discussions for about a year after that. He subsequently wrote "Confucius Reexamined,"3 which caused quite a stir because scholars on the mainland at that time either looked askance at traditional ideas or kept their distance from Confucianism. Reexamining Confucianism and casting it in a positive light made Li a controversial figure.
As we all know, Confucianism was a controversial subject throughout the 1980s. In 1985, I was a teacher at Peking University, and my classes were attended by many graduate students who believed that theirs was a generation that could learn to critique but never identify with Confucianism, and they held rather hardened attitudes. Li caused much academic dissonance in China because he identified with Confucianism, and he was forthcoming in his answers to the questions posed to him. Why was he not a neo-Confucian? He said that his views were very different from the neo-Confucianism with which I was associated. First, he attached more importance to Xunzi and I to Mencius.   was the first to raise the question of the third stage of Confucianism, and scholars such as Shen Youding 沈有鼎  and He Lin 賀麟  studied the evolution of the stages. The gist of the matter is this: Is Confucianism capable of developing further?5 For Confucian scholars, the real question is not how the third stage developed but whether there was a second stage. The significance of Confucianism in the Song [960-1279[960- ]-Ming [1368[960- -1644 period was not universally acknowledged at the time, and William Theodore de Bary [1919Bary [ -2017 coined the term neo-Confucianism6 to denote Song-Ming Confucianism, or the second stage of Confucianism.
The larger context of all these questions is what the international academic community calls the Axial age, which is a theory advanced by Karl Theodor Jaspers

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Journal of chinese humanities 6 (2020) 9-20 qualified the breakthroughs as transcendental. Daedalus, a magazine from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, published an issue titled "The Axial Age: Transcendental Breakthroughs" around that time. There is a reason for this theory. Western scholars believe that there was a breakthrough between the Axial age and the modern age, a premodern breakthrough that can be called the second period of the Axial age and is embodied by Martin Luther's  Reformation. It was this Protestant Reformation that made the premodern breakthrough possible, and it was the premodern breakthrough that gave birth to the modern world. The Reformation is therefore intimately linked to modernity. This is Max Weber's [1864-1920 theory, and we are all familiar with that.8 Without the Reformation, or the evolution of the second stage, the world would be merely an extension of the Axial age. The subject I discussed most with Western scholars at the time was whether China had experienced a premodern breakthrough. I believe that it did and that it was brought on by Song-Ming Confucianism. As a counterpart to the evolution and influence of Western theology, including Martin Luther, Song-Ming Confucianism's influence spread from China to other East Asian cultures. We can argue that Song-Ming Confucianism is more influential because its spread has a wider geographic scope. Western scholars believed that modernity was possible only when there was a second breakthrough after the Axial age; modernity was therefore a Western phenomenon, and other cultures could only emulate the West because they were incapable of internal breakthroughs. Of course, we can dispute this theory on many fronts. Therefore, this is the larger context of the discussions about the third stage of Confucianism.

Confucian Periodization
With this as the background, we think back to 1958, when Mou Zongsan and others published "A Manifesto for the Chinese Culture."9 The key question, in reality, was not how many Confucian stages there were but whether China could evolve further as a culture. In other words, can Chinese culture offer anything akin to Western modernity? The question that I pondered at the time was not the order of the Confucian stages but whether Confucianism could develop further. In fact, Confucianism has many tangential possibilities for further development, but which one should we pick? I believe that Confucianism must develop further; if it appears that it cannot, we must do all that we can so that it does. I was interested in Joseph Levenson's [1920Levenson's [ -1969 work at the time. We all know that, in Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, Levenson proclaimed that Confucianism "belonged in the museums."10 This is his verdict on Confucianism's aspiration to modernity. This is also how Chinese intellectuals felt after the May Fourth movement, though their view was not shared by the Chinese people in general. To a large extent, the intellectuals believed that Confucianism had to die; if it still had any life left, they would have to kill it off. Confucianism had too many problems, and its only proper place was in the past. But, in reality, in the 1960s Levenson began to doubt the validity of his own views: If Confucian traditions were at a dead end, how does one explain the Cultural Revolution [1966][1967][1968][1969][1970][1971][1972][1973][1974][1975][1976] or the movement to criticize Confucius and Lin Biao 林彪 ? When a tradition has truly ended, no one will refer to it; if people still talk about it, it is because it has not ended.11 There was something else in the larger context that people did not know at the time. Levenson was a devout believer in Judaism. Through the study of Confucianism, he saw the fate of his own religion and, indeed, of spirituality in general. Science, democracy, technology, and industrialization have obviated the need for spiritual belief, and this includes all the major religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Confucianism.12 He viewed the sad fate of Confucian China not as a disinterested bystander but as a sympathetic observer.
Levenson once told a story of modern Jewish culture. When the spiritual leader of the first generation had a problem, he went up to the mountain and performed a ceremony; he knew the significance and the details of the ceremony, and afterward the problem was solved. When the spiritual leader of the second generation had a problem, he went up to the mountain and performed a ceremony; he no longer knew the significance of the ceremony but was able to solve the problem afterward. When the spiritual leader of the third generation had a problem, he went up to the mountain and performed a ceremony; he was not sure what to do in the ceremony but knew the location he needed to go on the mountain. Today's Jewish scholars sit in lecture halls and conference rooms to discuss spiritual events of the past; they are aware that some ceremonies took place but do not know their location, details, or significance.13 This is our fate! Levenson looked at humanity and spirituality from this perspective, and it is a wake-up call, for Confucianism faces the same set of problems.
A tradition needs to transform its philosophical core to survive, so this is a philosophical question. But, at its root, it is also a spiritual question. This is not to say that Confucianism lacks political, practical, and emotional impact or that it is bereft of filial piety and loyalty. Confucianism has all these things, and the only thing that is missing is true philosophical creativity. Can we recreate Confucianism so that it has room to develop? At the core of all the discussions about the third stage of Confucianism is the question: "Is the third stage even possible?" This is the first point I want to make.
My second point has to do with periodization, and I have talked at length with Li on this subject. Periodization is important for historians. How do we create periodization for historical Confucianism? This is a different question from the existence of the third stage. Asking whether a third stage exists is tantamount to asking how Confucianism can develop in the twenty-first century. As for specific periodization, you can call it the third, the fourth, or the fifth stage; it does not really matter. The real question is: can Confucianism develop further? Apart from the question of the third stage, I share many of Li's views, but I also believe that Guo Qiyong's 郭齊勇 views are better.14 Confucianism in the Han, Sui [581-619], and Tang dynasties are no doubt important, but Qing  Confucianism is also key. If you pay scant attention to Qing Confucianism, or if you are lax in studying the social problems before and after the Opium War [1840][1841][1842], how can you hope to have any understanding of the third stage? Historians of philosophy rarely argue over differences in periodization. I have said that it is more in keeping with historical facts that 13 Levenson Another point I want to make is that Mou thinks highly of Lu Xiangshan 陸象山 [1139-1193] and Wang Yangming but seems to lack respect for Zhu Xi, whose work he deems apocryphal. But I find that the driving force behind his study of Song-Ming Confucianism, including the writing of his book Mind and Nature [Xinti yu xingti 心體與性體],15 is the desire to understand Zhu Xi, so in this respect Zhu Xi is the most important subject for him. I once asked him, "Do you think the evolution of Lu's and Wang's thought is not as important?" He responded by writing From Lu Xiangshan to Liu Jishan,16 but it was a quick sketch of a book; he wrote it in a hurry. What he really wanted to concentrate his energy on was to relate Zhu's philosophy to the evolution of Song Confucianism. Sometimes, a genealogy of philosophical thought and a scholar's interest in an academic subject are two different things. A philosophical genealogy is not the same as an objective study. There are two ways for a scholar to choose a philosophical genealogy, through what is described in academic history or a classification of teachings, which, in the end, can be either right or wrong. I believe that Zhu Xi sometimes showed an error of judgment in assessing Mencius, but Zhu did not really take up the mantel of Mencius, and Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming did. It is clear that Mou wanted to create a classification of Zhu's teachings, but he also wanted to tackle the question of reason-whether reason is being or doing, active or inactive. Many other fine points are also worthy of academic discussion.

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Journal of chinese humanities 6 (2020) 9-20 Mou and I differ on another point: I do not believe that Chinese academic traditions should be the only standard for Confucianism. The work of Korean and Japanese scholars after the Song-Ming period is important, and now it seems that we must include the work of Vietnamese and other scholars as well. Yi Hwang 李滉 [1501-1570 was the most important Confucian scholar from Korea. This acolyte of Zhu Xi put forth the concept of "four virtues and seven emotions" [siduan qiqing shuo 四端七情說] as his reply to the questions raised by Wang Yangming, and we have not paid enough attention to this argument. Yi broached the question of reason and qi 氣 in this work. It is his belief that the four virtues are activated by reason and merged subsequently with qi whereas the seven emotions are activated by qi and subsequently harnessed by reason.17 Reason and qi are intimately related yet fundamentally different, and we should never mix them together. I have no trouble accepting this approach. Philosophically speaking, the greatest difference between Li and me is that I cannot accept emotion-as-being, especially the tendency to treat emotion at the level of experience or everyday logic. This goes against the spiritual grain of Mencius and Zhu Xi, not to mention the tradition of Lu Xiangshan, Wang Yangming, and Liu Zongzhou 劉宗周 . We can argue a lot of points here. Why raise the Mencian banner and practice the Xunzian philosophy?18 Li gave his reasons, but reading them made me draw the opposite conclusion. There is no need to raise the Mencian banner because Xunzian thought is already mainstream. He said that Xunzian thought permeated two thousand years of Chinese history; he even made Zhu Xi a part of Xunzi's thought. Zhu would probably turn over in his grave if he could hear this. Li has spent a lot of time studying Mencius, only to conclude that Mencian thought is part of Xunzian thought. Of course, there is no doubt that the questions Li raised are seminal and worthy of discussion because they involve Confucianism's development in the modern age.
Another question is the development of the Axial cultures. Confucianism spread from Qufu 曲阜 to the Central Plain and became a major part of Chinese culture; this is Confucianism's first stage. But why is there a second stage? This is the biggest point of contention among Western scholars. If this second stage exists, it means that Confucianism has become part of East Asian culture and   once said that Confucian scholars in Japan were so proficient in the Chinese language that it would take Western scholars one or two hundred years to equal them. We can therefore see the reason for Yu's statement. But another way of looking at this is that if Confucianism cannot express its core values in any language other than Chinese and must rely on simplistic translations, it will never become a major part of world culture. I will give an example for the sake of comparison. We all know that Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism are the three major religions in the world, and each has its own core language-Hebrew for Christianity, Arabic for Islam, and Sanskrit or Pali for Buddhism. If you want to discuss Islam, it is best that you use Arabic.  , Mou Zongsan, Xu Fuguan 徐複觀 , and Qian Mu 錢穆  all agreed that we must ponder the question of Confucian development in the modern era. To quote Emmanuel Levinas , ethics is China's first philosophy. This includes both theory and praxis, both of which are intimately related to metaphysics, cosmology, and ontology. Will they withstand the turgid philosophical tides of the West? If we set aside the question of how we can tweak the inner saints and outer kings, we should first ask whether we can bring science and democracy to China only through the "self-denial of conscience."21 Questions such as these now generate many lively discussions in China. What we should also ask is: where should the starting point of the third Confucian stage be?