Study On The Political Philosophy Of Gu Yanwu

Collectively named the three great masters of the Ming and Qing Dynasty, Gu Yanwu, Hang Zhongxi and Wang Fuzhi are praised as the founding fathers of the academic thinking of the Qing Dynasty. Profoundly, they affected the Ideological liberation as well as social reform taking place in the late Qing period, and are of great significance in Chinese academic history. Gu Yanwu has long been regarded as a politician and is rewarded and respected for his lofty patriotic sentiment, independent and tolerant personality and his social critical spirit, however fewer attentions have been paid to his political philosophy, which is virtually unique, rich and critical.Therefore the study of Gu’s political philosophy is helpful for the understanding of his academic thoughts and pragmatic will, and is also an enlightenment on many political issues in China today such as the construction of socialist harmonious society and socialist democracy and the relationship between the rule of law and the rule of virtue, and a thought resource for contemporary political reality as well.The most prominent feature of Gu’s age was the downfall of the Ming regime and the rising of Manchu. This upheaval was not only the replacement of a dynasty but also the transformation of ruling nations from the Han people to Manchu. Intellectuals at that time were generally lamenting on the causes for the failing of the Ming, while the major political task of the Han Chinese was rebelling the Qing dynasty and rebuilding Ming dynasty, to which Gu devoted himself and gradually built and enriched his political philosophy in reflection and criticism.The theoretical basis of Gu’s political philosophy includes the naturalistic humanity based on the natural ontology and the "Qi monism". He abandoned the the moral idealism of Neo-Confucianism, but on the contrary, he constructed the whole human society order based on the empiricism about exploring natural knowledge and grasping the social law. On the basis of the ontology of Qi, Gu believed that the "private consciousness" of the "minding one’s own business and family" is rooted in human nature. To restrain the pursuit of "selfishness" cannot reach the best governance, however, the best governance must tolerate selfishness. Accordingly, Gu developed a series of "human nature" theory conformed to actual human nature and social development."Equality" is the logical basis of Gu’s political philosophy. Gu was highly critical of the autocratic monarchy system, in which the monarch has the absolute power, and rules the subjects with harsh punishment, tough laws and millions of officials. He considered the the supreme and unfettered monarch power as the root cause of the official corruption, people’s suffering from exploitation and even national downfall. Moreover, he opposed the inequality between the people, the monarch and officials. As a reinterpretation of Mencius’statement of "the arrangement of dignities and emoluments is determined by the House of Zhou", he advocated to pay full attention to the people in the political system and regarded the people’s well-being as an important responsibility of the monarch and officials. However, the equality he requested does not mean the same political rights among the people, the monarch and officials, but appropriate regulation on the extreme inequality of their relationships. In addition, considering Gu’s resolute opposition to "the distinguish of Yi and Xia", the so-called equality is only in terms of the Huaxia group, not involving the Yidi ethnic groups.In order to achieve quality, Gu proposed separation of powers and corresponding system design, which is the core of his political philosophy. The theoretical basis of Gu’s thought of separation of powers is his view on self-interest that selfish is part of human nature and is inevitable. The most concise summary of the decentralization thought is what he put forward as "Private interests serve for the the public benefits". But it still depends on the specific measures on separation of powers. Therefore, Gu designed a set of measures to decentralize from the top to the bottom of an organization. In general, first of all, he proposed the restriction to monarchial power which should be decentralized to officials at various government levels through the application of the sealing and refuting System; secondly, he suggested limited centralization of authority and decentralization under the system of prefectures and counties; and finally, he further proposed to restrict the local power by local autonomy and delegated power to the lower level of the village clan, thus expanding the local officials and rural gentry’s dominance over local affairs.The so-called "Corporate-management" suggested by Gu Yanwu is to achieve the ultimate ideal politics through the separation of p owers. By comparing it with "Unilateral-management", the basic m eaning of "Corporate-management" is illustrated by Gu on the follo wing two aspects:"Corporate-management" must against the "Unilat eral-management" of autocratic monarchy system; it emphasize on t he important role that moral indoctrination and traditional customs p lay in governing the country, which the importance is even greater, compared with the criminal law. Three measures has been put for ward by Gu to achieve "Corporate-management", that is, election, pu blic opinions and customs. It can be seen from the three measures that Gu support the general public to take part in the management of State affairs, but since most people have little chance to particip ate in the governance of the country, he actually advocated more o n limiting monarchial power and promoting the clan power of gove rnance.Due to the subjective and objective reasons, Gu’s political phil osophy had limited influence at that time and only found support fr om his friends such as Lei pan, Wang Hongzhuan, Huang Zongxi a nd so on. However, Gu Yanwu’s political philosophy profoundly infl uenced social reform in the late Qing dynasty, for it is a reflection of Ming and Qing period’s political reality. Although it has lasted for hundreds of year, it still can help us to get better understanding of China’s political tradition dating back thousands of years. Mean while it inspires us to consider the present political problems in a more comprehensive way, which is beneficial to the country’s furthe r prosperity.