On Xiong Shili’s Confucian Thoughts

Xiong Shili became a Confucianism master in his late years with his representativeworks of Origins of Confucianism, Essentials for Reading the Classics, The Evolution ofHeaven and Earth, On the Six Classics, and On Substance and Function, which focus onelaborating Chinese traditional Confucian thoughts. By interpreting Confucian classics withthe attitude of “classics being my footnote”, Xiong made a philosophical innovation.He reexamined the history of traditional Confucian classics in a perspective of “modernphilosophy” namely the “philosophical interpretation of Confucianism”, which, therefore,emphasizes on the explanation of augmentations of the Confucian classics. The essence of hisstudy lies in reconstructing traditional Confucianism through deconstructing traditionalConfucian classics so that traditional thoughts can be employed in forming his ownphilosophy-“pan-philosophization of Confucianism” in other words.Xiong put forward the proposition and inference that Confucian thoughts are philosophy,thus testifying the legitimacy of Chinese philosophy. In this light, he is more farseeing andsagacious than his coetaneous researchers Ma Yifu and Liang Shuming. After becomingnotable for his New Consciousness in his early years, Xiong claimed that his NewConsciousness-Only Theory comes from Da Yi and was rooted in the six classics, and startedhis devotion to Confucianism with reference to Buddhism. Also, he summarized andexplained Six Classics and the relationship between the six classics that is “inner sage, outerking”.In order to construct his own philosophy and to recast traditional Confucianism, Xiongdraws on much Buddhism thoughts, especially the existence, and void sects of Mahayana andworks out the theory of “integration of substance and function, unity of nature andrepresentation”. Meanwhile, the beneficial “factors” of civilization in westernlearning-science and democracy are absorbed to improve the weaknesses of Chinese learning.Additionally, he critically carries forward and modifies the traditional Chinese academicthoughts, especially those of Confucianism, Wang Yangming and Wang Fuzhi. He starts deep introspections on traditional Chinese culture in times of western culturalinvasion, the impact of the May4th New Culture Movement, the trend of “Down with theConfucianism”, the debate on science and metaphysics, and the idea of “Philosophy isuseless”. He saved traditional Chinese learning as the substance from falling and helped buildthe self-awareness and self-confidence of a national culture among the Chinese people. Hebelieves the study of Confucian classics outweighed western learning (western philosophy),or at least complements the latter so that the two can benefit each other, thus adopting the ideaof absorbing and integrating western learning into Chinese learning. The essence is to solvethe crisis in “Chinese learning as the substance” namely Confucianism by means of “westernlearning for use”. This solution, however, still falls into the convention of “Chinese body andwestern use”. The truth is how to develop the theory of “Chinese body and use” in face ofproblems of the epoch to carry forward “Chinese learning” thus contributing to thedevelopment of world civilization has been on the agenda.Xiong maintained “philosophy is the study of ontology” and like western philosophy thesix classics contain ample ontological and cosmological thoughts, especially Da Yi-the first ofthe six classics, and starts “philosophizing Confucianism”. The “philosophization ofConfucianism” includes Xiong’s interpretation of the gist of “integration of substance andfunction”, based on which he then begins to construct his philosophy. The philosophy of“integration of substance and function” has “no unity, no distinction”,“both opposite andcomplementary”,“substance dominating function” as its logical characteristics. This structurenaturally leads to the functions of “being and active”,“intrinsic and transcending”, and“single and multiple”. After analyzing Xiong’s logical construction of “integration ofsubstance and function”, a contradiction was found between “function serves substance” and“substance serves function”, and issues also arose in the lack of impetus when substanceserves function and in the instable distinction between substance and function followed bycriticism.Also included in the “philosophization of Confucianism” are the doctrines of “inner sageand outer king” and “to develop oneself and others” is the guiding principle of being an “inner sage and outer king”.“The study of being an inner sage” is to “achieve oneself” while “thestudy of being an outer king” is to “develop others”. Life cannot be groundless and without anorigin, therefore, the study of being an inner sage must make use of ontology and cosmology.The ontology of “Ch’ien Yuan Xing Hai” in the light of the integration of man and nature setsout to explain the fact that man and the universe are an organic whole in a natural world ofonly one hierarchy and no “utter other”. Therefore, rather than being a hermit people shouldbe actively mundane and vigorously achieving. The cosmological theory of “integration ofmind and object” based on “assuming changes through closing and opening”asks people tofrequently “reflect on the mind” so that “mind” can be turned into “object” instead of “object”being trapped in “mind” namely “mind enslaved by body”, and people should not bematerialized, drowned in the mundane world, or even corrupted. Xiong’s life philosophyholds that “man would have no reliance without nature, nature would not be nature withoutman”“Man would not exist without nature” while rather than just a “created”, man is also a“creator” as the intelligent part of the nature. Man should “admire nature’s cultivation” andassist everything as a means of living. Only through “creation” can man achieve thefulfillment of man and nature, namely “nature would not be completed without man”. Theepistemology of “integration of wisdom and knowledge”-elaborating in detail the unity ofepistemology, ontology and ethics sets out to ask people to develop the “intuition of wisdom”and to establish the direction of life development thus realizing the sagely state, namely thestate of heaven and earth. Xiong also explains his theory of “outer king” in which “being aninner sage” is “being an outer king” and “being an outer king” is “being an inner sage”-theunity of the two. While “being an inner sage” is the substance and “being an outer king” is thefunction. Without function, substance would be nothing and “being an outer king” tends to beempty without “being an inner sage”. Xiong believes that ample spirit of science exists in thestudy of traditional Chinese Confucianism and that “Ge Wu Wue” is what is called science inwestern world. By analyzing the merits and demerits of the “study of the nature of things”from Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming, and basing on the malpractices brought about by westerntechnical rationality or instrumental rationality, Xiong expresses new perspectives about modern science. He believes that freedom, democracy and equality are widespread inConfucianism. When practicing the theory of “Dragons without a leader” in Da Yi, he assertsthe political idea that classes should be eliminated by revolution. In a progressive perspective,he believes that Confucius was self-sufficient before the age of fifty, after which his thoughtschanged significantly into the “Great Unity” of the whole world that is “ConfuciansSocialism” should be realized by means of equality, unity and public ownership.Between the study of Confucianism and the history of Confucianism, Xiong adopts newmethodologies like “classics being my footnote”, metaphor,“positive interpretation” and“negative interpretation”,“ontological annotation” to interpret the “six classics”. He conductsnew interpretation about the Book of Poetry, the Book of of History, the Book of Changes, theBook of Rites, Classic of Music and the Spring and Autumn Annals namely the traditional sixclassics. For one thing, a brief summarization of the Book of History is completed. For another,“small words with deep meanings” should be employed based on that. With this guide andafter a critical study of the “six classics”, Xiong comes to the conclusion that Confucius’sthoughts altered at the age of50when he studied the Book of Changes. Before the learning ofthe Book of Changes, Confucius belonged to the“Well-off”school, while after that he becamepart of the Great Unity School. He also concludes that Confucius’s “sublime words with deepmeaning” are retained in the Book of Changes, the Spring and Autumn Annals, Zhou Guanand Li Yun but the rest was much altered by later scholars. This, on one hand, makes itinevitable for Xiong to be trapped in dogmatism and absolutism, and on the other hand helpshim succeed in freely expressing his philosophical standpoint and assertion, and further tohelp construct his philosophic system, which is well-grounded and stands to the reason.Finally, a point to be explained is the historical position of Xiong’s Confucianism inChinese cultural history. As a lifeguard for the old bourgeoisie democratic revolution, Xiongwas situated after the May4thMovement while his mind was still in the Revolution of1911.He re-established people’s self-confidence and self-awareness in national culture, re-built themetaphysics in traditional Confucianism. As a pioneer in the fourth generation ofConfucianism, he brought up three distinguished students Tang Junyi, Mou Zongsan and Xu Fuguan. He made a big contribution to the transmission and development of ChineseConfucianism, and laid a solid platform for the modernization of traditional Chinese cultureand the dialog between Chinese culture and world culture.