School of thought
New Confucianism
Movement
Classification
- Period
- c. 1921 CE onward
- Regions
- East Asia (origin)
- Domains
- Ethics, Metaphysics
Overview
New Confucianism revitalized Confucian philosophy by engaging with Western thought while defending the contemporary relevance of Confucian values. Mou Zongsan argued that Confucianism contains its own form of moral metaphysics, centered on innate moral knowing (liangzhi), that complements and in some ways surpasses Western philosophy.
Key ideas
- Moral Metaphysics: Mou Zongsan: Confucianism has a 'moral metaphysics' grounded in the direct experience of the moral mind, which is accessible through self-cultivation.
- Self-Negation of Innate Moral Knowing: Innate moral knowing (liangzhi) must 'negate itself' — temporarily set aside moral subjectivity — to make room for cognitive objectivity, science, and democratic institutions.
- Confucian Modernity: New Confucians argue that modernization need not mean Westernization. Confucian values (community, moral cultivation, filial devotion) can ground a distinctive Asian modernity.
Key figures
Xiong Shili · Mou Zongsan · Tang Junyi · Tu Weiming
Influenced by
- Kantian Critical Philosophy
Mou Zongsan translated Kant's three Critiques and built his moral metaphysics as a reconstruction of Kant: where Kant left freedom a postulate that cannot be known, Mou argued that the Confucian heart-mind knows it practically, through intellectual intuition.
- Neo-Confucianism
The New Confucians understood themselves as the third era of Confucian thought after the Song–Ming Neo-Confucians, and took their bearings from Wang Yangming's learning of the heart-mind while demoting Zhu Xi.
- Yogacara
Xiong Shili studied Yogācāra Buddhism before reworking its 'consciousness-only' philosophy into the Confucian metaphysics of his New Treatise (1932), while rejecting the Buddhist view that evil is innate to human nature.
References
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Modern Confucianism
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Modern Confucianism, §1 and bibliography — Formation: Liang Shuming's Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies (Shanghai, 1921), one of the current's first works.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Modern Confucianism, §1 'Background and Scope' (Mou's late engagement with Kant and his translation of the three Critiques) and §3.3 'The Reality of Intellectual Intuition and Free Will'
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Modern Confucianism, §1 'Background and Scope' (modern Confucianism as the third era after the Song–Ming period) and §4 'Human Nature and the Person' (the lineage of Mengzi and Wang Yangming, with Zhu Xi demoted)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Modern Confucianism, §1 'Background and Scope' (Xiong's study of Yogācāra and the New Treatise) and §4.1 'Rejection of Buddhist and Darwinian Views on Human Nature'
- New Treatise on Vijnaptimatrata (Consciousness-Only) — Xiong Shili
- Centrality and Commonality — Tu Weiming