| This dissertation is a study of the chin-wen (New Text) intellectual movement in the High Ch'ing period (1683-1839). It is also a synthetic study of Ch'ing thought as a whole. First, it frames Ch'ing thought as a coherent, integrated and comprehensive system of ideas in terms of which the sundry strands of learning in the period can be interpreted. As such, Ch'ing thought is construed as a "period concept," an epochal collectivity forged by the commonalities amidst the predominant intellectual persuasions of the time--evidentiary studies (k'ao-cheng-hsueh), Sung learning (Sung-hsueh), T'ung-ch'eng ancient prose (T'ung-ch'eng ku-wen) and New Text learning (chin-wen-hsueh). As a period concept, Ch'ing thought is shown to have posed as the assent-eliciting context, exhibiting common denominators or themes cutting across sectarian lines. These all-pervading themes, expressed as concepts and defined in Chinese terms, were "historicism," "vitalism," "pragmatism" and "intellectualism." Through such topological structuring, Ch'ing thought is established as an independent and unique intellectual context in contradistinction to its Sung-Ming predecessors.;Through the study of a particular strain of learning (a text) explicated in terms of a general intellectual milieu (the context), this dissertation seeks to reveal the Chinese pattern of intellectual articulation and rationalization on the eve of China's encounter with the modern West.;The second part of the dissertation is a detailed study of one of the intellectual approaches in Ch'ing times, chin-wen learning. It pinpoints the substantive correlation between chin-wen learning and Ch'ing thought. As a text, as it were, chin-wen learning illustrated the unifying and order-conferring themes in the context. This study extrapolates from chin-wen scholarship those principal commonalities that defined Ch'ing thought by examining the works and thoughts of the chin-wen scholars who harked back to the Han New Text exegetical tradition, a tradition largely built on the Kung-yang Commentary to the Ch'un-ch'iu classic. It is shown the way in which High Ch'ing chin-wen scholars, in their expositions of the central Han New Text tenets, operated within the parameters prescribed in the context of Ch'ing thought and established a consensual relationship with the major typological ingredients therein. |
