Confucian Personalities

429 Pages·1962·14.006 MB·English

by  Arthur F. Wright, Arthur Wright

CONFUCIAN PERSONALITIES
Stanford Studies in the Civilizations of Eastern Asia
Editors: Arthur F. Wright, George Sansom, John D. Goheen,
Thomas C. Smith, Robert H. Brower, Mary Clabaugh Wright
Volumes published under the auspices of the Committee on
Chinese Thought of the Association for Asian Studies
Arthur F. Wright, ed., Studies in Chinese Thought (Chicago, 1953)
John K. Fairbank, ed., Chinese Thought and Institutions (Chicago, 1957)
David S. Nivison and Arthur F. Wright, eds., Confucianism in Action (Stanford, 1959)
Arthur F. Wright, ed., The Confucian Persuasion (Stanford, i960)
Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett, eds., Confucian Personalities (Stanford, 1962)
CONFUCIAN PERSONALITIES
Edited by
ARTHUR F. WRIGHT and DENIS TWITCHETT
With Contributions by
ALBERT E. DIEN IGOR DE RACHEWILTZ
HERBERT FRANKE CONRAD M. SCHIROKAUER
HANS H. FRANKEL DENIS TWITCHETT
RICHARD C HOWARD WANG GUNG-WU
JOSEPH R. LEVENSON HELLMUT WILHELM
FREDERICK W. MOTE NELSON I. WU
fANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS • STANFORD, CALIFORNIA
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 1962 by the Board of Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 0-8047-0044-3
Original edition 1962
Last figure below indicates year of this printing:
89 88 87 86 85 84 83 82 81 80
Preface
The Committee on Chinese Thought of the Association for Asian
Studies presents here its fifth and final symposium volume. This com­
pletes a decade of intensive scholarly exploration of Chinese ideas in
action. The last five years have been devoted to studies of Confucianism
and its role in the development of Chinese civilization. The first of three
symposia on this subject was Confucianism in Action ( 1959), which was
concerned with Confucianism in its relation to selected institutions and
to the political process. The second volume, The Confucian Persuasion
(1960), dealt with manifestations of Confucianism in diverse facets of
Chinese culture, while the present symposium examines the effects of
Confucian ideas and prescriptions in the lives of twelve noted Confu-
cians between the sixth and the twentieth centuries.
In the course of the last ten years, the Committee has organized five
research conferences, and from each of these a volume has been devel­
oped. We have been singularly fortunate in enlisting the cooperation
of able and vigorous scholars both in this country and abroad. We have
sought, at each step, to foster existing research interests relevant to our
inquiries, and the Committee has at no time “commissioned” articles or
asked its contributors to write to specifications. The result has been a
happy diversity of approach and treatment and, at times, a fruitful clash
of interpretive opinion. We believe that this more than compensates for
the asymmetry which is as characteristic of this volume as of its prede­
cessors. As we conclude our work, we are acutely conscious of the vast
field which we have been able to explore only partially and superficially.
It is our hope that others may find in our volumes hypotheses and sug­
gestions that will inspire further and more intensive studies, not only
of Confucianism but of the other seminal traditions of Chinese thought.
And if, here and there, we have been able to show the relevance of our
findings to the study of civilization generally and to comparative studies,
we shall feel doubly rewarded.
From its beginnings in 1951 the Committee has been singularly for­
tunate in its friends and sponsors. The late Robert Redfield gave the
Committee wise and generous support in its early years. He and his
colleague Professor Milton Singer provided funds from their Program of
vi PREFACE
Comparative Studies of Cultures and Civilizations to help the Commit­
tee through its first two conferences and symposia. Since 1957 the Com­
mittee s activities have been generously supported by the Rockefeller
Foundation. During those years the Committee has been sponsored and
encouraged by the officers and directors of the Association for Asian
Studies Incorporated, and Mrs. Victoria Harper, Business Manager of
the Association, has handled our business affairs with notable efficiency.
First Stanford, then Yale University contributed to the support of the
chairman s office. The Stanford University Press, which has published
the three volumes on Confucianism, has given expert and sympathetic
attention to our problems.
The Committee would also like to thank those who have helped in
the preparation of the present volume. Professors Harold D. Lasswell
and Mary C. Wright of Yale offered helpful suggestions on methodo­
logical and substantive problems. Mr. Jonathan Spence of Cambridge
and Yale Universities served as rapporteur of the 1960 conference, out
of which this volume developed. Mrs. Alice Durfee has been the Com­
mittee’s conscientious and able secretary, while Miss Adrienne Suddard
has served with skill and devotion as editorial assistant. Mr. Chou Ju-hsi
has prepared the Index.
A. F. W.
April 1962
Contents
ix Contributors
ARTHUR F. WRIGHT 3 Values, Roles, and Personalities
DENIS TWITCHETT 24 Problems of Chinese Biography
ALBERT E. DIEN 43 Yen Chih-t'ui (531-591+) :
A Buddho-Confucian
HANS H. FRANKEL 65 Tang Literati: A Composite
Biography
DENIS TWITCHETT 84 Lu Chih (754-805) : Imperial
Adviser and Court Official
WANG GUNG-WU 123 FengTao: An Essay on
Confucian Loyalty
HELLMUT WILHELM 146 From Myth to Myth: The Case
of Yiieh Fei's Biography
CONRAD M. SCHIROKAUER 162 Chu Hsi's Political Career:
A Study in Ambivalence
IGOR DE RACHEWILTZ 189 Yeh-lii Ch'u-ts'ai (1189-1243) :
Buddhist Idealist and Confucian
Statesman
HERBERT FRANKE 217 Chia Ssu-tao (1213-1275) :
A "Bad Last Minister”?
FREDERICK W. MOTE 235 A Fourteenth-Centuiy Poet:
Kao Chi
CONTENTS
NELSON I. WU 260 Tung Ch’i-ch'ang (1555-1636) :
Apathy in Government and Fervor
in Art
RICHARD C. HOWARD 294 K'angYu-wei (1858-1927) : His
Intellectual Background and
Early Thought
JOSEPH R. LEVENSON 317 Liao P'ing and the Confucian
Departure from History
327 Notes
Contributors
albert e. dien received his training in Oriental languages at the University
of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley; he is writing his doc­
toral thesis on Yen Chih-t ui. He is now Assistant Professor of Chinese at the
University of Hawaii. His research interests are the intellectual and institu­
tional history of medieval China and Central Asian history.
Herbert franke was a student of law, history, philosophy, and Sinology at
the universities of Cologne, Bonn, and Berlin. He received his LL.D. in 1937
and his Ph.D. in 1947 from the University of Cologne and taught there from
1948 to 1951. He was appointed Professor of Far Eastern Studies at the
University of Munich in 1952. His chief interest is Chinese political and
cultural history. His publications include Geld und Wirtschaft in China unter
der Mongolenherrschaft (1949) and Sinologie (1953).
Hans h. Frankel was educated at the Gymnasium of Göttingen, Stanford
University, and the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his
Ph.D. in 1942. For several years he edited the Chinese Dynastic Histories
Translations series at the University of California. He is now Associate Pro­
fessor of Chinese Literature at Yale, having previously taught at the Univer­
sity of California, National Peking University, and Stanford. His field of
interest is Chinese literature, particularly from the second century b.c. to the
thirteenth century a.d.
richard c. howard received his B.A. and M.A. from Columbia University
in 1948 and 1950. He spent two years in Taiwan and Hong Kong studying
Chinese history and language. Since 1959 he has been research associate at
the Project on Men and Politics in Modern China, Columbia University. He
is engaged on a large-scale study of K’ang Yu-wei.
Joseph r. levenson received his B.A. (1941) and Ph.D. degrees from Har­
vard, where he was a member of the Society of Fellows. He is now Professor
of History at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since
1951. He is the author of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the Mind of Modem China
and Confucian China and Its Modern Fate.
Frederick w. mote took his B.A. in Chinese history at the University of
Nanking in 1948 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington
in 1954. He taught Chinese at Leiden on a Fulbright exchange lectureship
in 1955-56. He is now Associate Professor of Oriental Studies at Princeton
University. His research interests are in late Yiian and early Ming history,
and a book on the intellectual history of the fourteenth century is being pub­
lished by the Princeton University Press.
X CONTRIBUTORS
Igor de RACHEWiLTZ studied at Rome and Naples, and did postgraduate re­
search at the Australian National University in Canberra, where he received
his Ph.D. and is now teaching Far Eastern History. His major interests are
the development of Buddhist and Taoist thought and Sino-Mongol culture
contacts. He has recently completed a study of Yeh-lii Ch’u-ts’ai, and is at
present investigating certain aspects of the Mongol conquest of China.
conrad m. scHmoKAUER received his doctorate from Stanford University in
1960 with a dissertation on the political thought and behavior of Chu Hsi.
He is now Assistant Professor of History at the City College of New York.
In 1957-58 he studied in Paris under a Fulbright grant, and in 1960-62 he
taught at Swarthmore College. His research interests are in the intellectual
and political history of the Sung.
denis TwiTCHETT studied at London and Cambridge Universities and received
his doctorate from Cambridge with a thesis on the Tang financial system.
After further study in Tokyo, he became Lecturer in Far Eastern History at
London University, and later University Lecturer in Classical Chinese at
Cambridge. He is now Professor of Chinese at the University of London.
His primary interest is in the economic and institutional history of medieval
China. He is the author of a forthcoming book on financial administration
under the Tang dynasty.
Wang gung-wu received most of his education in Malaya and also studied at
the Central University, Nanking. He obtained his doctorate from London in
1957 and is now Senior Lecturer in history at the University of Malaya in
Kuala Lumpur. He has published The Nanhai Trade, a Study of Early Chi­
nese Trade in the South China Sea, and The Structure of Power in North
China during the Five Dynasties,
hellmut Wilhelm received his Ph.D. in Chinese Studies from the University
of Berlin in 1932. He served as Lecturer and Professor at Peking National
University and is now Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Wash­
ington, Seattle. His publications include numerous books and articles con­
cerning the intellectual and literary history of China; he is currently at work
on a study of intellectual trends in nineteenth-century China.
Arthur f. wright was trained at Stanford, Oxford, and Harvard Universities
and studied in Japan and China 1940—47 and 1953-54. He was Chairman of
The Committee on Chinese Thought from 1951 to 1962 and contributed, as
author and editor, to the Committee's five symposium volumes. His publica­
tions include Buddhism in Chinese History (1959) and articles on Chinese
Buddhism and intellectual history, especially of the period 200-750 a.d. He
is now Charles Seymour Professor of History at Yale University.
nelson ikon wu (wu no-sun), Assistant Professor of the History of Art at
Yale University, took his B.A. in Language and Literature at the National
Southwest Associated University in Kunming in 1942 and his Ph.D. in the
History of Art at Yale University in 1954. His doctoral thesis was on Tung
Ch'i-ch'ang. His book on Chinese and Indian architecture will be published
in 1962.