A Study On Ye Dehui's Thought And Academy

During the transition process of academy and culture in modern China, in the view of the facts that there was approach-new trend in academic field, a group of scholars make it their business to reserve Chinese culture, guarding the traditional academic mode and the cultural ideal securely, constituting another kind of strength that affected the modern academic cultural development, and Ye De-hui was an outstanding representative among them. Then, how do these scholars reply to the historic turning period? What elements affected them?Which kind of logic do their thoughts follow? What kind of characteristic do their academic research present? How do they impact on modern China? This dissertation try to answer these questions through a study on Ye De-hui's thought and academy, and try to uphold the various aspects of academic culture.The new culture replacing the traditional one was main current of the modern China, but it presented different special features in the concrete regional. The thought and academy of Ye Dehui, firstly connected with Hunan culture, especially with the change of Hunan provincial academic style in modern history. The tradition that supporting the feudalism ethics in Hunan is one of the origins of the Ye Dehui's thought. On the other hand, the division of academic aim of Hunan province in modern history gave Ye Dehui a mission to develop Confucian Classics study. Ye Dehui became still the academy path of the Han Confucian Classics study through attendance school in childhood and association with other scholars of Beijing. As the influence of Hunan academic orthodox tradition, Ye De-hui revered Zhuzi. When returned to home, Ye Dehui was visited by Wang Xianqian as a comrade of developing Hunan Confucian Classics study. Then Ye Dehui became an important member of Han Confucian Classics study in Hunan region.However, the academic tide of developing Han Confucian Classics study in Hunan encountered an era challenge. The failure of China in Sino-Jap War in Jia-Wu year(1894) provided the impetus for Chinese reform. As a nation of the loyalty and right, Hunan carried out the Reform Movement firstly. Ye Dehui also paid attention to reform, and shared the same assertion in many topics with other reformers. However, as the Reform Movement varied from steady to radical, extended from political field to cultural field, especially when the theory of Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao threatened the traditional culture system directly, Ye Dehui leaded off a response and tore down Kang Youwei's views, becoming a conservative leader. For Ye Dehui, the debate between the New school and the Old school happened in Wu-Xu year(1898) was firstly focused on academy, then on thought. On academic issue, he criticized Kang Youwei's views such as the Old Text Confucian Classics is false and Confucius is a reformer and so on, showing the real strength of Hunan in Han Confucian Classics study. On the problem of reform, contrary to the proposal that only big and whole change can save country which was insisted by Kao Youwei, Liang Qichao, Tan Citong, and so on, Ye Dehui insisted on the principle that people should be changed first in the political reform, pointed out that keeping moral standards and regular public is a prior condition for political reform, he claimed that"don't speak reforming , but speak eliminating disadvantages,and the most important thing in political reform process is to find an effective method for China". On the culture field, Ye Dehui opposed Kao Youwei's reforming of Confucian, proposing that whether a religion merit or not should be judged according to the gains and losses of public truth or falsity of the growth and decay, the difficult and easily of promoting. By contrast Confucian to western religion, he put forward the assertion that people need not be sad for Confucian and Confucian need not be protected. The cultural thought of Ye Dehui was affected by the traditional thinking model about distinguish between Yi and Xia (Yi-xia zhi bian), and also touched a certain predicament of the modern progress consciousness ambiguously, reflecting his conservative position on the issue of how to rebuild social cultural order. He insisted on the principle that gain new insights through restudying old material which was claimed in Confucian Classics, insisted on change foreign with the Chinese. The real content was protectting people from Chinese culture reforming Chinese culture in western culture.The New-and-Old debate happened in Wuxu year made Ye Dehui's expand his visual field of cultural concerned to surmount Hunan, also made his influence surmount Hunan province, becoming one of famous representative's person that famous in China. Ye Dehui deemed it his duty to maintain the Confucian belief and carried out this kind of cultural ideal, concentrating on the study and spread of Confucian knowledge system. According to the evolution of the modern social current of thought, Ye Dehui's thinking of Confucian Classics also varied from stages. Before the New Reform Movement on late Qing dynasty, he mainly distinguished the right and wrong among traditional academic category. He advocated Han Confucian Classics and adored Zhuzi, made a new interpretation about the relation of Han school and New-Confucianism; upholded Zuozhuan and denounced Gongyang, sticked up for the Confucian knowledge system, resisted the suspicion of classics and interpretation. In late Qing dynasty and early Republican China, the Confucian Classics study was declining, Ye Dehui claimed that Qing dynasty dead of Confucian Classics classics'dead, and tried to reconstruct the Confucian Classics study. In the trends of esteeming Confucius and reading classics in early period of Republican China, Ye Dehui established a Confucian Classics study academy in Hunan. On one hand, Ye Dehui reviewed the history of Classics study, summarized the manners of Classics study, and supervised students to research. On the other hand, he attempted to reconstruct people's faith in the Confucian through excavation of its meaning and to recover the knowledge system of Confucian. However, confined to the standpoint of Old Text Confucian Classics, Ye Dehui couldn't illuminate a new meaning of Confucian Classics, but turned back to the traditional idea. What Ye Dehui had thought and adjusted to Confucian Classics represented a kind of effort to support Confucian academy as well as its theory. But because of its contravention to the developing trend, this kind of effort finally failed.Contrary to Ye Dehui's hope, the culture and academy didn't develop in the direction that gain new insights through restudying old material, but in the direction that break with the old and establish the new. Since late Qing dynasty, Chinese inherent knowledge was become the symbol of"old learn" and declined increasingly, which caused Ye Dehui's concern. He took it as his duty to conserve Chinese traditional academy. Flourishing Chinese learn depend on ancient books; the key of conserving an ancient book is to copy ten million and to widespread, in addition to paying attention to collect. Against this historical background, Ye Dehui's activities of collecting and printing ancient books transcended his personal temperament and interesting, transcended the concrete academy position, embodied his spirit of conserving Chinese learn. He attached great importance to collecting bookes, but he didn't want to be famous for a collctor of books .He regarded it as his duty to spread the ancient books and to conserve the reading method, synchronized the publishing of ancient book and studying Chinese learn. All these activities attributed to Chinese culture inheritance. But in some concrete research realms such as linguistic research, he is not successful. He made it as his instruction thought that to explore the origin of Chinese character and to maintain the ancient meaning of Chinese, supporting traditional literalness paradigm, opposing to Jingjiawen's replacing Shuowen Jiezi and turmoil Chinese writing; trying to resolve the problem that Chinese had difficulties in reading by finding the word building method, and boycotted the Chinese word reforming movement which launched since late Qing dynasty, aiming to protect Chinese special language literalness culture. As the evaluation standard was changed, although he was proud of his achievement on linguistic research, Ye Dehui didn't get the approbation of the academe. Because of the resistance to the new paradigm of linguistic research as well as to the contrast of Chinese-Western culture behind the new paradigm, Ye Dehui fallen to the edge of academe field.From taking it as job ambition to develop Hunan Confucian Classics study to taking it as a mission to inherit Chinese culture spirit, it is not only the enlargement of Ye Dehui's cultural concern in the space visual filed, but also the different responses to distinct stages of modern academy culture transition. Although he was failed to adjust to new acaddimic trend ,but his achievements in maintaining traditional culture made him a important scholar in modern academic history.