Cultural Discourse Of Confucian Scholarship

This dissertation is a study of Confucian scholarship from the perspective of cultural discourse based on the case of Tang Shouqian(1856-1917), a late Qing Confucian scholar. Problematizing the modern conceptualization of talent and the epistemologically-grounded and knowledge-based inquiry of talent, this dissertation aims at exploring how a talent of the Chinese traditional learning was fostered, focusing on the way of thinking, valuing, behaving of the talent, as well as the cultural soil of fostering Confucian scholarship. A three-dimensional framework is developed focusing on Tang Shouqian’s learning, doing and his living space. One specific theme of shuili (水利 water conservancy) is selected out of a vast array of Tang Shouqian’s scholarship and social practices as shuili is one of the practical issues that Tang Shouqian had great concern since he was young.The main discoveries of this dissertation could be glossed in three aspects. First, adopting a cultural-historical approach to discourse analysis, it examines the meaning construction of shuili through the historical texts of shuili tian 水利田 in Wenxian tongkao jiyao 《文献通考辑要》compiled by Tang Shouqian. It reveals that Tang Shouqian’s way of thinking in governance of water, characterized with the historical mode of thinking and moral consciousness, is originated in the exegesis of jing (经 the Confucian classical texts) and shi (史. historical texts). A further reading of the language of shuili discourse reveals three major characteristics of the texts: the Chinese concept of wen (文 texture, pattern, fabric) as the very genesis of meaning, the juxtaposition of multiple texts enabling multi-layered meaning generation, and citation of Chinese classical texts as source of meanings for understanding and valuing in governance. Secondly, in solving Maxi Dam controversy, Tang Shouqian had "formed a historical map" before he proposed the detailed scheme and he also cherished a humanistic concern for the people by thinking in the place of the sage king. Thirdly, through the interpretation of meanings in the tangible sites and objects, intangible memories, stories and rituals, as well as the interpretation of gengdu (耕 读 cultivating the farmlands and studying Confucian Classics) in Datangwu Village, it reveals that Tang Shouqian was fostered or deeply grounded in a web of meanings, which I render as the cultural soil of Chinese traditional learning.As a transdisciplinary study, the inquiry of Confucian scholarship from the perspective of cultural discourse provides an alternative way of thinking to the modern Enlightenment construction of pedagogical discourse. The historical reflection on Chinese historical discourses and cultural roots of learning points to the humanistic values in Chinese Confucian education, which calls for rethinking the aim of contemporary education and developing transformative pedagogies.