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Face and favors, two important concepts in traditional Chinese society, had positive effects on social order. Face could not only stimulate good behaviors, but also avoid bad ones. Favors helped people build a relationship of mutual aid and achieve social solidarity. Nevertheless, the functions have changed in recent years as the acquaintance society declines, which brings bad influences on social order. With the evaluation system materializing, Face now acts as an inducement of illegal and criminal activities, and an impulse of power corruption as well. With the destruction of reciprocal balance, favors are not the link of social assistance and solidarity any more. On the contrary, it has been a mean of accumulating wealth or bribery, and the impetus of social split. And what makes these variations happened? The main reason lies in the change of social opinion field structure.

From “Abstract Inheritance” of Morality to “Creative Inheritance”: With a Discussion of Cultural Inheritance in a Hermeneutic Perspective

Chen Lai

Through a review of the discussion on inheritance of traditional Chinese culture involving Feng Youlan and other scholars, and combining a hermeneutic perspective, it can be seen clearly that the key to inheritance and development of contemporary Chinese culture is to transform from “critical inheritance” to “creative inheritance,” which is aimed at making continuous development and innovation of Chinese culture while maintaining self-identity by “creative interpretation and practice” of traditional culture. Cultural inheritance is a unity of inheritance and development, and texts in historical inheritance would be faced with new problems and new understandings in every age, so their significance must be renewed. Contemporary cultural inheritance should not remain at textual exegesis, but should open the texts to new times and become a bridge between past and present. Contemporary cultural inheritance does not mean fossilization and simplification of classical texts, but should let people today make creative dialogues with historical texts, make creative interpretations of the universal meaning of traditional texts to meet the needs of contemporary society and culture.

A Critique of Contemporary New Confucians in Mainland China: Taking Jiang Qing, Kang Xiaoguang, Yu Donghai, Chen Ming, and Yao Zhongqiu for Examples

Xiao Qiang

Contemporary New Confucians in Mainland China have a strong sense of context and belonging. They position themselves as analysts of Confucian thought coping with new times, but not researchers buryed in ancient classics, and show strong appeal to apply Confucian theory to the reality and even guide contemporary reality. Jiang Qing, Kang Xiaoguang, Yu Donghai, Chen Ming, and Yao Zhongqiu are representative figures of the group. They differ vastly in their thoughts, yet all believe that the reason why New Confucians in Mainland China are different from New Confucians in Hong Kong and Taiwan is that the former advocate political Confucianism while the latter advocate spiritual Confucianism. Being a growing and relatively close civil academic community, New Confucians in Mainland China hold similar or communicating political propositions, and run academic journals. In today’s marketplace of ideas in Mainland China, what do the propositions of those New Confucians mean? What role does they play in the political and moral reconstruction of future China? Do their thoughts conform to China’s future political trend? Do their propositions conform to the cardinal spirit of Confucianism? How can Confucianism welcome new times and realize transformational creation? Those questions can only be answered after systematic review and criticisms.

The Grand Global Debate of the Social History of China: Centered on the Discussion on the Historical Periodization of China in 1956

Chen Huaiyu

In 1948-1972, Sinologists in West Europe organized annual conferences for junior Sinologues and held them around Europe. They presented papers, exchanged academic information, and made friends. These conferences were held in West Europe at the beginning and later Sinologists from Soviet Union and East Europe also joined. Eventually scholars from China and elsewhere were also invited to participate, which made a global community of Chinese studies. Chinese scholars including Jian Bozan, Zhou Yiliang, Xia Nai, and Zhang Zhilian attended conferences in Leiden in 1955 and in Paris in 1956. They presented their research, introduced the progress of compiling sources of modern Chinese history in China, and organized exhibits on Chinese archaeological findings since 1949. One of the most noteworthy accomplishments in the Paris conference was the debate on the social history of China, which centered on the periodization of Chinese history. Chinese participants introduced the periodization discussions in China based on Marxism, which generated very fruitful discussions and fascinating debates among European and American scholars. Most renowned Sinologists were involved in this debate, and even French historian Braudel was attracted. This grand debate should be examined within the political, intellectual, and cultural contexts of the Cold War. During that period, the intellectuals across the globe were influenced by leftist thought. This grand debate was also an outcome of the globalization of Sinology in the post-World War II era.

Shen Congwen: Persistence on Trauma, a Spiritual Poet, and an Immature Genius

Jia Zhenyong

To study Shen Congwen from a psychological perspective is a new and effective path to explore Shen and the originality of his writings. In the process of discovering, imagining, and constructing himself, Shen Congwen formed a kind of bipolar psychological structure of inferiority and conceit interacting with each other. The construction of his literary Utopia is the result of continuous work and an extension of his life experience, and his value was gradually built in other writing with two themes of the city and the village. The persistence on trauma, as well as his selective memory and artistic reflection, are the deep psychological motivations and spiritual origins of Shen’s originality. As a valiant defender of local color in modern Chinese literature, Shen sang a kind of sentiment of paradise lost and dream of reproducing Utopia through his pastoral elegy and historical sorrow. Unfortunately, he stopped his pace of discovery and creation on the way of building more glorious Utopia of human nature because of rigidity and bigotry of his psychological structure, because of the difficulty in reconstituting the incentive source, because of the mind barrier clinging to abstraction and idea, and because of the external intervention as well as loss of free room for creation.

A Discussion of Tian Yuqing’s Method and Style in Historical Studies

Zhang Guo’an

Tian Yuqing introduced an effective method to propel the studies of Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, and his studies of political history with strong geopolitical color are considered a paradigm. His research method is mainly to collect as much material as possible, engage in textual research, and enlist employ commentary from different epochs. He searches for problems and clues with historical thought and rich imagination, comprehend historical venation putting himself in other’s position, and reveal the internal relations, conflicts and changes with exact and terse narration, as well as rigorous logic and argumentation, thus giving successful explanations to the important phenomena and events in the Medieval Chinese history. He owns an unique research style, as well as a plethora of talent, learning, insight, and virtue. He has a thorough knowledge of things Western, Chinese, traditional, and modern. His vision is broad, while his mastery of detail and human nature is delicate, which causes deep resonance.

A Study of Confucius’ Idea of Nationalities from “Rarely Speaking of the Barbarians”: With a Discussion of the Theoretical Consciousness in Ethnic Studies

Huan Pingqing

In the ambiguous sentence inTheAnalectsofConfuciusthat “the Master rarely spoke of profit or Heaven or perfect virtue,” the word “perfect virtue” could also be interpreted as “barbaric nationalities.” In the times of great migration and integration of ethnic groups during the Spring and Autumn period, Confucius held a rational, conscious, and cautious attitude toward the “discrimination between Huaxia and Yidi,” so he rarely discussed “barbaric nationalities” disparagingly, which showed his national concept conforming to the trend of ethnic integration, and transcending national and cultural boundaries. Such an inclusive and unifying idea laid a solid ideological foundation for the Chinese nation stepping from diversity to unification. His cultural and theoretical consciousness on ethnic problem is still revealing for present ethnic studies.

Seeking the Unity of Authority and Order: The Ming Emperor Taizu Complex as Seen in the Yangming School during the Late Ming Dynasty

Liu Zengguang

In the Yangming school during the Late Ming Dynasty, scholars such as Yang Fusuo and Guan Dongming held Emperor Taizu of Ming in great esteem and attempted to interpret Taizu’s thought with the philosophy of mind. They thought Taizu was a sage-king who could be compared to the ancient Emperors Yao and Shun, as well as Confucius. In regard to this comparison, they paid attention to three aspects: the relationship between three teachings, filial piety and rites, philosophy of mind and Confucian orthodoxy. Through analyzing these aspects, we can find that, on the one hand, their interpretation of Taizu made the philosophy of mind politicalized and systemized which means the philosophy of mind attained an official role, and on the other hand undermined the strength of the philosophy of mind regarding criticizing the reality and politics. The latter one in particular is against the spirit of Confucianism, therefore, this point could be seen as a symbol of the collapse of Yangming School. From the perspective of political philosophy, the Ming thinkers’ worship of Taizu reflected their idea about the relationship among order, liberty and authority. And this kind of idea can be traced back to Confucianism since the pre-Qin period.

A Textual Research of the Author of “On My Modest Room”

Sun Siwang

Although the piece “On My Modest Room” was not listed in the extant edition of Liu Yuxi’s collected works, it had been regarded as being left by him. Since the 1970s, some scholars such as Yu Beishan, Bian Xiaoxuan, and Wu Xiaoru wrote articles to assert that the piece used the allonym of Liu, making the problem of its author a complicated case. Those statements just reiterate the opinion of the monk Zhiyuan in the Song Dynasty, which assumes authenticity according to one’s taste on personal character and style of writing. There are mainly three reasons for Liu Yuxi being the author: first, the extant edition of his collected works can provide series of internal evidences for the piece; second, the poems on the theme of “modest room” emerged in Liu’s circle of friends; third, the stele of Guanyin Temple of the Tang Dynasty being cited is fake, and the statement that the piece excerpted folk adages does not hold.

The Questionable Logic and Historical Facts in the “Epigraph of Yin Shilu” by Ouyang Xiu

Zhang Xingwu

The controversy caused by Ouyang Xiu’s “Epigraph of Yin Shilu” both reflected different historical approaches between Ouyang and Yin Zhu, and displayed Ouyang’s historiographical style of “intention dominating article” and “not being detailed on circumstances.” In the essay, Ouyang somehow showed “pity” toward Yin’s advocacy of Dao, which might be closely related to the academic divergence between them. Yin intentionally followed the style of “sublime words with deep meaning”, and proposed that the country should “take the studies of Confucian classics to be the first thing,” which was contrary to the idea of Ouyang Xiu, Sun Fu, and Shi Jie. The comment that Yin’s writings were “concise and methodical” especially revealed Ouyang’s subtle mentality that he was unwilling to concede to Yin on the “ancient literature.”

On The Functions and Variation of Face and Favors

Huang Jinlan