The Two Ways Of Sinicism Of Liberalism—Three Debates Between XuFuguan And Yin Haiguang

Chinese liberal intellectuals began to find different ways to achieve freedom, democracy, independence and prosperity because modern China was full of crisises inside and outside the country. In general there are two ways, one was Confucian liberalism (Chinese native liberalism), the other is May-fourth liberalism(liberalism Westernization). The former maintained liberty and democracy could develop from Chinese traditional culture, especially Confucianism, the latter insisted on destroying Chinese traditional culture and transplanting Western liberty and democracy. XuFuguan and Yin Haiguang were representatives of both sides. We can know the general situation of sinicism of Liberalism by comparing their thoughts. There were two debates between Xu and Yin, including in 1954,1957,1962 when they were at Tai Wan Province. The paper will study different opinions of Xu and Yin about liberty, democracy and Chinese traditional culture, especially Confucianism through three debates, and the transformation of Yin at his life in the late, in order to compare Confucian liberalism with May-fourth liberalism.In the debate of 1954, Xu and Yin had a discussion focusing on freedom and liberty. Xu considered freedom as life and mental state ruled by oneself. He thought the concept of liberalism appeared late in history, but the spirit of liberalism appeared as long as the mankind did. Every human culture had some parts of the spirit of liberalism. Yin considered freedom as political rights of the freedom of speech, thought, assembly, association. He thought the need of freedom came from the man himself, and achieving freedom need some external support. Xu took individualism as basic of liberalism, but he wasn’t satisfied with being a individualist. He tried to find a balance between individualism and collectivism. Yin was a individualist totally. About how to achieving freedom in Chinese situation, on one hand Xu admitted confucianist didn’t come up with the concept of liberalism, on the other hand he thought Confucianism included some key points of liberalism, and liberalism could had a steady development in the atmosphere of Confucianism humanistic spirit. On the contrary, Yin thought Chinese liberalism resulted from the influences of Western culture and civilization, and Chinese traditional culture couldn’t support the development of liberalism.In the debate of 1957, Yin criticized reactionists with 《Regroup the May-fourth Spirit》. Xu responded with 《History, Culture and Freedom, Democracy——Response to revilers》.They had a furious argument upon the evaluation of the May 4th Movement, the relationship between Chinese traditional culture and political authority, democracy, which was the real bone of contention. They both agreed with superiority of democracy. Xu valued the rule of virtue more than the rule of law. Yin regarded the rule of law as a path to democracy. Xu put an emphasis on social power. Yin valued the, contribution of scientific spirit to democracy. However, they had absolute contradictory opinions about the relationship between Chinese traditional culture (especially Confucianism) and democracy. Xu thought democracy wasn’t born in traditional Chinese society because of some careerists in history and Two Subjectivities in Chinese traditional politics, having nothing to do with Confucianism. Confucianists, didn’t come up with specific democratic system, such as parliamentarism, but they did mention the spirit of "government of the people, for the people". In addition, Xu regarded "theory on the goodness of human nature" as human nature basic of democracy. Therefore, Xu insisted that we should dig out democratic factors, which had been hidden by despotism, in the Confucianism, and help to strengthen them. At the same time, Xu thought there weren’t scientific and anti-scientific factors in Confucianism. On the contrary, Yin thought Confucianism which was accomplice of totalitarian politics could do nothing to support democracy, and would be counterproductive. At the same time, Yin thought there were only non-scientific and anti-scientific factors in the Confucianism.The debate of 1962 arised out of Xu’s 《The shame of Chinese, the shame of Easterner》 which had a fierce critic on Hu Shi. There was an indirect involvement of Yin. During the debate, Yin’s students became the backbone to criticize Xu. There wasn’t direct conflict between Xu and Yin in this debate. But we can still find out the differences of their opinions on attitude toward Chinese traditional culture (especially Confucianism). Xu believed the cultures of mankind were diverse and tradition contained two levels, including the high and the low. Xu maintained that we must have sincere and respectful attitude toward our native culture and people who calumniated native culture will not learn, introduce western culture seriously. At the same time, Xu objected to regard Confucianism as metaphysics. Yin believed Chinese traditional culture was fogeyish, laggard, and Confucianists were the ghost of authoritarianism.Yin changed himself from a anti-traditionalist to a non-traditionalist later in his life. He no longer insisted that tradition could cut apart, and destroying Chinese traditional culture was the premise of achieving freedom, democracy. At the last days of his life, he no longer thought Confucianism was rigescent, closed and laggard. There were many reasons to promote Yin’s transformation. The most important one was his emotion and reason became unification finally. Strong homesickness in 1960s, rethink on Logical Empiricism both played very important roles in this process.