Researching On Liang Qichao’s "Dynamism’

This paper attempts to reinterpret Liang’s thoughts from the perspective of "power". He had been thinking about the question of "how was Chinese type of dynamic possible". Liang not only took material resources as dynamic, but regarded mind power as dynamic, and on this account he structured trilogy of dynamism:dynamic, material resources and mind power.Liang Qichao’s reflections on "dynamism" first pointed to "the restructuring of cosmology". The traditional the universe noumenon of "void quietness" showed up as cosmology of "dynamism" in Liang’s thoughts. Liang overturned the ancient cosmology with theory of power, and then replaced "final cause" with "efficient cause".By means of the paradigm of thought of traditional philosophy that "human conducts should be in conformity with the Dao of heaven", Liang started thinking about the motivation of historical evolution. In his opinion, historical evolution needed "competition" and "creation" and must think about "violence" at the same time.Liang’s thinking about "material resources" was at first related to the dominant theme of the times of "prosperity". In the view of seeking prosperousness, material resources was manifested as economic and military might. If prosperity of material resources was the superficial goal of nation, the progress of material resources was the further appeal. The prevailing of material resources in modern times certainly needed philosophical justification. According to Liang’s view, the philosophical foundation of the view of material resources contained two levels:the overturn in value of "debate on justice and interest" and the logical spread of "competition between heavenly principle and human desire" in modern times.Liang made it clear that "mind power" was more important than "material resources" on the question of "the seek of power". Liang’s understanding of mind power contained four levels:the first was mind power in the psychological sense; the second was in the ontological sense; the third was in the sense of moral philosophy; the last one was in the sense of philosophy of history. Furthermore, he took mutual explanation between mind power and willpower, and then put forward the theory of free will. He not only examined closely how "free will" was possible, but realized internal tension between "free will" and "determinism", and then tried to work through the internal tension with "compatibilism". Moreover, Liang also got a glimpse of "the weakness of will" of Chinese at that time, which made him begin to think about how did the weakness of will happen and proposed solutions to overcome the weakness of will.And what is more important, Liang not only had structured the philosophical system of "dynamism", but also had been rethinking "dynamism" itself. Virtually, on the one hand the rethinking based on Records of Travels in Europe could be deemed as reflection on "evolutionism in China", on the other hand it could be regarded as rethinking about "modernistic way of China". Therefore, Liang’s diagnosis of modernistic crisis could be regarded as a thinking direction for "modernistic theory of anti-modernity".