Taiwanese Confucianism

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Contemporary Chinese Thought, vol. 41, no. 1, Fall 2009, pp. 3–9. © 2010 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 1097–1467/2010 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753/CSP1097-1467410100

Yong Huang

Taiwanese Confucianism Guest Editor’s Introduction Abstract: This collection demonstrates not only that any Confucianism is localized and historical, but also that any of these historical and localized forms of Confucianism is pregnant with ideas that have significant implications beyond its own location and time. Over the last couple of decades, a group of scholars in Taiwan, led by Huang Chun-chieh of National Taiwan University, has undertaken a large project on “East Asian Confucianism,” which includes Taiwanese Confucianism, and itself is part of a broader project on East Asian civilization. East Asian Confucianism, according to Huang, “includes the Confucian traditions in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, and yet it is not merely their mechanical combination” (2007, 39). Rather, the idea of East Asian Confucianism implies that there is an East Asian Confucian community, whose members share core Confucian values embedded in their own respective cultural traditions. Thus, to study East Asian Confucianism is not merely to study Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, or Vietnamese Confucianism separately but in their interaction and mutual influence. What is central to the idea of East Asian Confucianism is a pluralistic view of Confucianism. Among the various versions of Confucianism in East Asia, there is no contrast between orthodox and heterodox versions; rather, while they are different, they have equal standing. While Yong Huang is a professor of philosophy at Kutztown University. 3

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the contrast between the center and periphery among these traditions is not necessarily denied, this contrast is certainly not viewed as fixed. The Japanese scholar Nobukuni Koyasu uses mathematical coordinates as an image to explain this phenomenon: “the horizontal axis may be seen to represent the space in which the center of Confucianism exerts its influence upon the periphery, while the vertical axis may be seen to represent the time in which Confucianism gets established and developed or declined” (Koyasu 2003, 17). What is important in this image of the coordinates is that the center of Confucianism as a spatial phenomenon moves along the temporal axis. In other words, what is the center at one point of time may become periphery at a different point of time and vice versa. This conception of the center and periphery echoes what Tu Weiming says on the issue of Chineseness in his discussion of the idea of cultural China. Tu’s conception of cultural China includes three symbolic universes in continuous interactions. The first consists of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, societies whose members are predominantly ethnic Chinese; the second consists of Chinese communities in predominantly non-Chinese societies throughout the world; and the third consists of individuals who try to understand China intellectually and bring their conceptions to their own linguistic communities. Writing at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, in the wake of the controversial yet popular and influential television series on Chinese cultural roots and ethos, Heshang (River elegy), with its central message that China would soon be disfranchised as a player in the international game, Tu states that although “those who are on the periphery (the second and third symbolic universes plus Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) are seemingly helpless in affecting any fundamental transformation of China proper, the center no longer has the ability, insight, or legitimate authority to dictate the agenda for cultural China. On the contrary, the transformative potential of the periphery is so great that it seems inevitable that it will significantly shape intellectual discourse on cultural China for years to come” (1991, 27–28). Thus, Tu uses “The Periphery as the Center” as the subtitle of his paper. While Tu has a broad conception of “Chineseness,” it is clear that he sees Confucianism as the core of Chineseness. Hence, what Tu says is that, at least at the time of his writing, China became the periphery of Confucianism. Seen from such a perspective, the question I encountered when I proposed this topic to the editorial board of this journal—whether

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the issue title should be “Confucianism in Taiwan” or “Taiwanese Confucianism”—can be easily answered. I eventually used “Taiwanese Confucianism,” at that time simply because the other expression is too cumbersome. Today, with my job done, I further reflect on this issue and start to think that this is really a false question. In this contrast, on the one hand, the term “Confucianism in Taiwan” is supposed to mean that there is something universal called “Confucianism” that is merely planted in a particular location, Taiwan, with its universal elements not being localized; on the other hand, the term “Taiwanese Confucianism” is supposed to mean that it is merely a localized Confucianism without its universal significance. The former holds a monist view of Confucianism, whereas the latter holds a sectarian view. I think both suppositions are false. There is no such thing as “Confucianism” that is universal, abstract, and nonlocalized, ready to be implanted in a particular location in a particular period; nor is there any localized Confucianism that does not have any universal significance. Any Confucianism is one that is contextualized in a particular geographical location and historical period. In other words, any Confucianism is a localized and historical Confucianism. At the same time, any of these historical and localized forms of Confucianism is pregnant with ideas that have significant implications beyond its own location and time. One way to understand this is in light of what Tu Weiming calls “glocal knowledge.” There is no genuine global knowledge that is not localized, and there is no genuine local knowledge that does not have a global significance. On the one hand, as Tu points out, “what some of the most brilliant minds in the West assumed to be self-evidently true has turned out to be parochial, a form of local knowledge that has significantly lost much of its universal appeal” (Tu 2003, 4). On the other hand, what has long been regarded as not only localized but also outdated knowledge— Confucianism—has turned out be “an effective critique of excessive individualism, pernicious competitiveness, and vicious litigiousness of the modern West” (18). Thus, from Tu’s point of view, any genuine knowledge is always local and yet forever global; it is in this sense a “glocal” knowledge—local knowledge with global significance. This is also a view that Huang Chun-chieh self-consciously holds in his study of East Asian Confucianism. Huang argues, “globalization and localization are two historical tendencies that interact with and benefit each other in a dialectical and developing relationship. . . . The more localized a piece of knowledge or creation is, the more likely it is to become

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global and international. At the same time, only when the local cultural characters are preserved can the globalization attain its truly cosmopolitan significance” (Huang 2003, 31). Huang also approaches this idea of glocal knowledge in terms of contextualization. Taiwanese Confucianism can be regarded as Confucianism contextualized in Taiwan. In this contextualization, Confucianism needs to speak to the particularities of Taiwan— geographically, historically, and culturally. However, this does not mean that this is a process of the transformation from an acontextual Confucianism into a contextualized Confucianism. Confucianism is always and everywhere contextualized, although Huang claims, “the contextuality of Confucian classics in China was latent, tacit, and almost imperceptible” (Huang 2010). However, the reason it is merely latent, tacit, and almost imperceptible is not because Confucianism is any less contextualized in China than in other parts of East Asia, just as Christianity is not any less contextualized in the West than in China or India; rather, it is because we are used to the mistaken view of Chinese Confucianism as Confucianism proper and Confucianism outside China as its applications. One of the pioneers in the study of Taiwanese Confucianism, Chen Chao-ying, author of the first paper in this issue, explains the relationship between Confucianism and Taiwanese Confucianism well. In her view, this is similar to the relationship between classics and interpretation of classics: “Interpretation, of course, relies upon the classic [being interpreted], because it is the interpreter’s response to, explanation upon, and even modification and reconstruction of a classic in a particular spatial-temporal context; on the other hand, a classic also relies upon its being interpreted, as a text cannot be a classic if it cannot have any echo or interpretation in other historical periods and geographical locations” (Chen 2008, iv). On this, Huang Chun-chieh, the author of the other three papers in this issue, also agrees. On the one hand, Huang claims, “a classic is a classic precisely because of its eternity: its content has spatially and temporally transcending qualities”; on the other hand, as shown in the commentary history of Confucian classics, “a classic is eternal precisely because, in the unceasing flow of time, there are always interpreters in each generation who enter the world of the classic with their own questions, seeking answers from the ancient sages and worthies. Thus, there is an endless creative dialogue between interpreters and the text, so that the classic acquires its always new life” (Huang 2003, 61). This conception of classics is indeed consistent with that of HansGeorg Gadamer. Gadamer, arguably the greatest hermeneutic philosopher,

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also argues that “the ‘classical’ is something raised above the vicissitude of changing times and changing tastes,” and it is “something enduring, of significance that cannot be lost and that is independent of all the circumstances of time” (1989, 288). However, it is timeless not because it is ahistorical, but precisely because it is thoroughly historical, because it “is contemporaneous with every other present,” because “it always contains a temporal quality that articulates it historically” (288), because “it says something to the present as if it were said specifically to it,” and because its “power to speak directly is fundamentally unlimited” (289). In short, it is timeless not because it says the same thing that is true of all historical periods, but because it has the power to say something new to every historical period, so that to someone in a particular historical period, the classic speaks as if it were written precisely for that period. Correspondingly, to understand a classic “is not merely a reproductive activity but always a productive activity as well,” and so “we understand in a different way, if we understand at all” (297). In this issue, we select four recent studies of Taiwanese Confucianism originally published in Chinese.1 In the first paper translated here, “Development of Confucianism in Taiwan: From the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century,” Chen Chao-ying studies Confucianism from its introduction to Taiwan to largely non-Han Taiwanese people in the late Ming dynasty, the quick development of Confucianism as the mainstream culture in the Qing dynasty, and its resistance to Japanese culture during the period of Japanese occupation. After a detailed study of Taiwanese Confucianism developed in the monument inscriptions, school regulations, poetry, and historical records, Chen emphasizes two unique aspects of Taiwanese Confucianism during this period. First, while Confucianism is indigenous to Han people in China, it became a Han-izing (han hua) education to Taiwanese aboriginals. This raises an important issue about the relationship between Confucianism and non-Han culture. Second, while Confucianism entered Taiwan as a powerful cultural tradition, during the Japanese occupation, it became a weak cultural tradition that had to be preserved in the face of the stronger Japanese culture. In the second and third articles, Huang Chun-chieh examines Taiwanese Confucianism after World War II. In “Confucian Thought in Postwar Taiwanese Culture: Form, Content, and Function,” Huang examines the two forms of Confucianism in postwar Taiwan. One is the state ideology presented in elementary and secondary textbooks, which emphasizes governmental authority; the other is the intellectual tradition, with a

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particular emphasis on meeting the challenge of modern Western values. In the second piece by Huang, “The Conservative Trend of Confucianism in Taiwan After World War II,” Huang further studies state Confucianism and reveals its conservative tendency, as it sings the praises of political leaders, uses the uniqueness of Chinese culture as an excuse to oppose Western values, and rejects political reform. At this point, it is interesting to point out that in contrast to state Confucianism, what Huang calls academic or intellectual Confucianism, such as that of Mou Zongsan, explores the possibility of reconciling Confucianism and modern science and democratic political systems.2 In the last article, “The Confucian Tradition and Prospects for Taiwan in the Twenty-First Century,” Huang explores the fresh meaning of Confucian thought for Taiwan in the twenty-first century. On the one hand, in the face of industrialization and postindustrialization, accompanied by air pollution, water pollution, and industrial pollution in general, Huang claims that the Confucian view that human beings are destined to live and flourish in symbiosis with each other and with other things in nature is particularly significant in developing a Taiwanese Confucianism that can deal with these problems brought to us by industrialization. On the other hand, although Taiwan is already a democratic society that has basically followed the Western model, which views the individual and the group as adversaries, Huang stresses that the future development of Taiwanese Confucianism has to draw on the Confucian view that all the different levels of a person’s life are interconnected, which regards the individual not as solitary but as immersed in the group. Thus, Taiwanese Confucianism as developed thus far, and to be further developed, is certainly a local phenomenon in the unique context of the interaction between Taiwan and China, tradition and modernity, and indigenous and foreign culture. However, such a local phenomenon also has its global significance. First, Confucianism has long been the dominant tradition in China, and its initial introduction to Taiwanese aboriginals provides us with both experiences and lessons for Confucianism to be introduced to other heterogeneous cultures; second, the development of Confucianism in postwar Taiwan, a highly modern society, also provides experiences and lessons for Confucianism, even in China, about how to deal with market economies, democratic polities, and ecological harmony—all new questions to traditional Confucianism. Yong Huang Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

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Notes

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1. Due to length limitations, there is significant abridgment of each of the four articles translated here. This abridgment has been decided in consultation with the authors. 2. For an exploration of postwar Taiwanese Confucianism in this respect, see Pan 2005.

References Chen, Chao-ying. 2008. Taiwan ruxue: Qiyuan, fazhan yu zhuanhua (Taiwanese Confucianism: Origins, development, and transformation). Taipei: Guoli Taiwan daxue chuban zhongxi. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1989. Truth and Method. 2d ed. New York: Continuum. Huang, Chun-chieh. 2003. Dongyan yuxueshi de xin shiyan (A new perspective on the history of East Asian Confucianism). Taipei: Himalaya Foundation for Research and Development. ———. 2007. Dongya ruxe: Jingidan yu quanshi de bianzheng (East Asian Confucianism: The dialectic of classics and their interpretations). Taipei: Guoli Taiwan daxue chuban zhongxi. ———. 2010. “On the Contextual Turn in the Tokugawa Japanese Interpretation of the Confucian Classics: Types and Problems.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 9, no, 2. Koyasu, Nobukuni. 2003. East Asian Confucianism: Critique and Method. Taipei: Himalaya Foundation for Research and Development. Pan, Chaoyang. 2005. “Some Aspects of the Studies of Post-War Taiwanese Confucianism: Issues and Significance.” In Retrospect and Prospect of the Study of East Asian Confucianism, ed. Huang Chun-chieh, pp. 427–502. Taipei: Guoli Taiwan daxue chuban zhongxi. Tu, Weiming. 1991. “Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center.” Daedalus 120, no. 2: 1–32. ———. 2003. “Multiple Modernities: Implication of the Rise of ‘Confucian East Asia.’” In Dongya wenhuaquan de xingcheng yu fazhan: Rujia sixiang pian (The formation and development of an East Asian cultural zone: Confucianism), ed. Gao Mingshi, pp. 1–24. Taipei: National Taiwan University, Department of History.

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