Abstract
In this chapter we look at Liang Shuming as a philosopher of culture. Liang is the first Chinese thinker who through a comparison of Chinese culture with Western and Indian cultures attempted to find for Chinese culture its place and meaning in the system of world cultures. Liang’s cultural thought, which will be explored by means of four of his works, i.e., Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies (Dong-** wenhua ji qi zhexue 東西文化及其哲學; 1921), “The Final Awakening of the Self-Saving Movement of Chinese Nation” (Zhongguo minzu zijiu yundong zhi zuihou juewu 中國民族自救運動之最後覺; 1930), A General Idea of Rural Reconstruction (**angcun jianshe dayi 鄉村建設大意; 1936) and The Essential Meaning of Chinese Culture (Zhongguo wenhua yaoyi 中國文化要義; 1949), echoes the tremendous predicament of Chinese culture which started its new unprecedented phase with the foreign intrusion in China after the unequal treaty in Nan**g of 1842 in the wake of the First Opium War (1839–1842). All in all, Liang’s cultural thought turns out to be—as understood here—a manifestation of “Sinodicy”, i.e., a philosophical theory of the justification of Chinese culture. This cultural theory is a kind of apology and argumentation for the greatness of Chinese culture in the face of its many shortcomings which are actually part of each human culture. Liang’s key theorem describing Chinese culture was its premature character, which was eventually concretized in his understanding of it as the early manifestation of human reason. According to him, reason displayed within Chinese culture a function of substitution, i.e., (1) morality substituted for religion, (2) familial-ethical human relations substituted for feudalism, (3) ceremonies (customs) substituted for law, (4) feelings substituted for force, (5) diversity in occupations substituted for social classes, etc.
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Notes
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In 1982, Frederick J. Streng (1933–1993) published a remarkable contribution with the title “Three Approaches to Authentic Existence: Christian, Confucian, and Buddhist” (371–392). Although his main concern was the comparison of thought among three 20th-century thinkers, that is, Paul Tillich (1886–1965), a Christian, Tang Junyi 唐君毅 (1909–1978), a Confucian, and Nishitani Keiji 西谷啓治 (1900–1990), a Buddhist, he also explicated the concept of authentic existence: “To live authentically human being must know and actualize the ‘the nature of things’” (Streng 1982: 371). Cf. also Wesołowski 2005: 366–374 and Tu Weiming 1976: 242–273, 396–400.
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Cf. Wesołowski 2005: 368–369.
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Cf. Wesołowski 12.
This epistemic attitude leads a total renunciation of the world, which consists in a radical attempt to completely destroy the dual attachment (i.e., world-attachment and double self-attachment as an innate and a differentiated self-attachment). Here one could cite the whole section “Fojiao de xing’er shangxue fangfa” 佛教的形而上學方法 (The metaphysical method of Buddhism; DXWH: 409–414) and especially the words: a radical attempt to completely destroy [xianliang] lead unswervingly to: Silence! Cessation! Liberation!” (DXWH: 412–413).
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The classification of so-called “Eight Consciousnesses” is a teaching of the weishi-Buddhism (Yogācāra). According to this teaching, there are five sense consciousnesses (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body), which are supplemented by the sixth awareness, i.e., the mental consciousness (thoughts / ideation) and the seventh known as the defiled mental consciousness (also called: deluded awareness; posited on the basis of straightforward cognition in combination with inferential cognition; its form of physical phenomenon is, e.g., self-attachment: with Liang, a specificity of Western culture), and finally the fundamental store-house consciousness (all-encompassing foundation consciousness), which is the basis of the other seven. This eighth consciousness is understood as the one to collect and store away the impressions of previous experiences, which form the seeds of future karma in this life and in the next after rebirth. Cf. Wesołowski 1997: 196.
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How true it sounds today! The sexual revolution (1960–1980) as a time of sexual liberation was a social movement throughout the United States of America that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships. Later it spread in the wider world, especially in Europe. Such sexual liberation included increased acceptance of sex outside of traditional heterosexual, monogamous relationships (primarily marriage). This crisis of love between man and woman, which in the present-day is connected with sexual liberation and the crisis of sexual identity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and LGBT ideology should have been for Liang the most formidable problem at the beginning of the second social problem of humanity which is already under way. Of course, he himself must have believed that all these phenomena will be ultimately overcome because of his faith in Sino-Confucian familism, in which (traditional) family means the only suitable and adequate locus of nascency, development and cultivation of human feelings. The beginning of these basic familial feelings are instinctive faculties in xiao (filial piety) and ti 悌 (brotherly obedience). **ao and ti as originally instinctive faculties have to be developed first into feelings, and then cultivated as virtues in family relations. Cf. Wesołowski 1997: 141, 145, 146, 272f., 290, 315, 386, and 391.
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Cf. Chap. 4: Liang the Bergsonian.
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This neologism of mine was built following words such as theodicy (Leibniz: an attempt to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil) and anthropodicy (Nietzsche: arguments attempting to justify the existence of humanity as good in view of evils done by concrete men and women).
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The term cunzhi (village government) was Liang’s original name for his reconstruction of the Chinese village. From 1933 on there was a common agreement in China to call these efforts generally xiangcun jianshe (rural reconstruction).
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In this context Liang used the word wenming 文明 (civilization). Actually, in ZGWH he distinguished between culture and civilization: “So-called civilization is [the totality] of products of achievements we have in our life … The stereotyped and concrete artifices of life are civilization, and an abstract way of life is culture. However, culture and civilization can be considered as one thing with two sides, for example a system of government can be regarded as the artifice of a nation, that is civilization, or as the way of life of a nation—culture” (ZGWH: 380–381).
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In this context, Liang made another definition of culture: “So-called culture is the means (fangfa 方法) of getting along (guo rizi 過日子) of a society. A given society has its way of living (Westerners have their own way of life, and the Chinese, too, have their own way of life). Their ways to live are a culture” (XJD: 611).
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In this concept of rural reconstruction, Liang argued against other alternative concepts such as that of local autonomy (difang zizhi 地方自治) and self-defense organization (ziwei zuzhi 自衛組織). His concept has some prototype in Song dynasty, called xiangyue 鄉約—a village covenant (cf. XJD: 669–671).
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On the one hand, this pair is primarily about the outer pole of consciousness as object or world-relatedness (in general intentionality, Buddhist fazhi 法執—world attachment). On the other hand, it is also concerned with the inner pole of consciousness as self-centeredness, self-consciousness or general reflexivity (Buddhist wozhi 我執—the twofold self-attachment). Confucius, according to Liang, destroyed the second aspect of double self-attachment, i.e., fenbei wo is a differentiated, egocentric, and egoistic self which is at work in Western-pragmatic culture. The Buddha destroyed both, i.e., the first aspect jusheng wo which is for him the inborn, life-oriented, and intuitive self and the second—fenbei wo. Buddha’s enlightenment meant, of course, the destruction of world attachment. Cf. fn. 19.
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Here I understand conservatism (from Latin “conservare,” “to preserve,” or also “to preserve something in its original context”) as a collective term for intellectual and political movements that aim at the preservation of the existing order or the restoration of former aspects of social order and culture. Conservatism is based on the idea of a political and intellectual continuity designed for peaceful evolution and an orientation towards proven, historically grown traditions. “Conservative” in this sense was often used in the cultural discourse on modern China and Liang, especially by Guy S. Alitto (1979).
The concept of neo-traditionalism is more my own choice to characterize Liang Shuming’s cultural thought, by which I mean his attempt to make the deliberate revival and reworking of old Chinese culture with its practices and institutions in new political-social contexts for the future China.
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The Lu-Wang tradition refers to the learning of Lu **angshan 陸象山 (also known as Lu Jiuyuan 陸九淵, 1139–1192) and Wang Yangming 王陽明 (also known as Wang Shouren 王守仁, 1472–1529). Because both stressed the role of the mind (xin 心) as the proper focus of practice, posterity came to call their learning the “Lu-Wang tradition” or xinxue 心學, as a mind-based learning. The culmination of this tradition, Liang saw it in Wang Gen—the founder of the Confucian Taizhou School. Cf. Yan **aomei 2009: 173–188. On Liang and Bergson, see Chap. 4 in the present volume.
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Wesołowski 1997: 95–96.
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Wesołowski 1997: 95, fn. 3.
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Wesołowski SVD, Z. (2023). Liang the Philosopher of Culture. In: Meynard, T., Major, P. (eds) Dao Companion to Liang Shuming’s Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 17. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18002-6_5
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