A Perspective on HK/Taiwan Cultural Philosophy

I just read another chapter of "The Cultural Moment of Philosophy" by Hung Hiu Nam (洪曉楠) under the title "A Perspective on HK/Taiwan Cultural Philosophy (港台文化哲學透視). 

 

According to Hung, he had already written two books on this subject previously viz. 文化哲學思潮簡論 (00) and 當代中國文化哲學研究(01) and written on the contemporary new Confucians like Mou TsungSan(牟宗三), Tang JunYi(唐君毅), Hsu FuKuan (除復觀) , Fang YouLan(馮有蘭) and Lu ShuHsien (劉述先) but took time off during a visit to the Harvard-Yenching Academy to visit their library and discovered some interesting materials on HK/Taiwanese Chinese cultural philosophy. which he summarized in the above article. He treated the subject under three sub-headings: 1. the meaning of cultural philosophy 2. fundamentals of cultural philosophy and 3. the contemporary significance of cultural philosophy. The article first appeared in Dec 2003 issue of 哲學動態.

 

According to Tang in his book 哲學概論, the Chinese did not have a concept of cultural philosophy but they did have practices which may be so termed e.g. 禮記's discussion on the rites and music and the explanatory/expository texts on poetry, classics, rites, music, i-ching, annals of spring and autumn (詩書禮樂易春秋) and also the introductory chapters or prefaces of such  texts as those on history like Book of rites 禮書, Book of music 樂書, Journal on Artistic Texts 藝文誌 Journal on Criminal Law 刑法誌 etc have all discussed the meaning and value of subjects like rites and music, based on ideas of human nature (人性) and the nature of the Tao (天道) and their effects on political and social order and chaos  (治亂). To Tang, the Tsing scholar 章學誠 who in his The Universal Meaning of Texts and History (文史通義) considered that the teachings of 詩書禮樂易春秋 are the primary sources of Chinese scholarship and 馬一浮's thesis on the Six Arts (六藝) which considered that the culture and the spirit of the 6 arts will enable us to connect man to heaven or the Tao,  may both be considered as a species of cultural philosophy. Therefore if we consider Chinese thought as basically humanistic, then Chinese philosophy may be considered as centred on cultural philosophy. To Tang, all kinds of philosophy may be usefully grouped under the term "Humanism" which to him, may include cultural philosophy, the philosophy of history, the philosophy of education, the economic philosophy, religious philosophy, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of art and that all such distinctions are entirely artificial because ultimately, every one of them are concerned with how human beings should live as a species. Elmer Fung 馮滬祥 also agrees with Tang that the cultural philosophy form the core of Chinese philosophy. That is why in his Chinese Cultural Philosophy 中國文化哲學, he discussed the thoughts of Confucius, Mencius, XunTse, LaoTse, KuanTse, HanfeiTse, Mahayana Buddhism, ChuTse, YangMing, ShuanShan. This is the first book of Chinese cultural philosophy as such.

 

Next, there is another Taiwanese scholar Wu KwunYu (鄔昆如) of the University of Taiwan who had written a series of 5 volumes on Chinese culture from the 1970s to the 1990s which he called "Lectures on the Philosophy of Culture" (文化哲學講錄 79, 82, 83, 86 and 90). His method is to classify all thoughts under three headings viz. objective historical development (with empahsis on its reference value of the wisdom found therein for modern society) , inherent meaning ( on the relationship of man with nature, with objects, and with society and the dialectical relationship between them )  and contemporary significance (going beyond the metaphysical meaning of such thoughts and to explore how they may be applied in the social practice of man in society to  help them solve the common problems they face in their lives under contempoary conditions) from the point of view of philosophy. Voulme 2 deals with the social philosophy of pre-Chin Confucians, Volume 3 with the pre-Chin Confucian philosophy of culture, the pre-Chin Legalists's social philsophy and their relations with 3-Peoples Philosophy (三民主義) and Social Philosophy, Volume 5 with the social philosophies of the pre-Chin Taoist social philosophy, the social philosophies in the period of the two Han dynasties (兩漢), Wei Tsun (魏晉), Tsu and Tang (隋唐), Sung (宋). He also discusses comparative cultural studies like "The Future of Chinese philosophy from the perspective of comparative philosophy" (從比較哲學看未來的中國哲學 .), "A comparison of the development of Chinese and Western spiritual thoughts and its contemporary significance" (中西精神思想發展之比較及其現代意義)" "A comparison of Spengler and Toynbee (史賓格勒與湯恩比之比較)." He reviews the past, explores its meaning for the present and looks ahead to the future.  To him the rise of cultural philosophy is a great development happening only within the last two centuries, with its emphasis on the history of philosophy in the first 100 years and shifting its emphasis to social philosophy in the second 100 years and the two together span the whole field of cultural philosophy. He considers society is a cross section of human culture or civilization and philosophy explores the basis of such societies through social phenomena. Historical analysis is vertical whereas social observation is horizontal and through approaching the problem vertically and horizontally, we may then hope to find useful lessons for the future.

 

On the fundamental problems of cultural philosophy, Tang thinks that we should first define what the area of our studies, its basic concepts and its methods. To him, we need to examine the relation of man to nature, the nature of man himself and the relation of man to transcendence and therefore it will inevitably touch on problems of knowledge, the problem of logic, the problem of existence or metaphysics, the problem of values and the problem of life. To him, it is impossible to discuss knowledge, metaphysics and philosophy of values or of life without touching one another. Fung thinks that there are three problems about works on cultural philosophy by PRC writers. First, he thinks that they frequently fail to deal with the social and historical contexts of the relevant cultural philosophies. Second, they fail to link their studies with the conditions of contemporary life and third, they do not place themselves within the traditions of cultural philosophy in the West. To him, cultural philioshy must be linked at all times to the relevant social, historical and philosophical traditions and contexts and must attempt to outline its significance for contemporary life. He advocates 6 W's,: what (what is culture), why (why culture), where (where is culture leading to) when (when does culture rise and fade) who (who is moving the culture along) how (how does culture advance): in other words, it must deal with the nature of culture, its occurence, its development, its opportunties, its structures, its methods. To Fung, the philosphy of culture is the foundation of social and cultural development and it may also provide also the engine or motivating force for cultural  development . It provides a compass for such development and points to the ills of particular cultural forms and may thus indicate the direction for its remedies. To him the lessons to be derived from a study of cultural philosophy is that we should work on our psychological reconstruction and try to fill the spiritual void of contemporary men so that we shall not fall victim to excessive utilitarianism, over-smpahsis on techonological and commercial development and reintroduce an element of balance to contempoary life by providing certain spiritual resources available from our studies of past cultural values and past philosophies of culture.

 

To all the "cultural philosophers", all philosophies cannot help but be some form of philosophies of culture. 方東美 advocates paying attention to comparison, linking idealism to cultural models; Lu advocates the idea of  "one principle but  different realization  理一分殊"  ; Mou advocates understanding Chinese philosophy through Kant's  categories of reason and moderated development of the spirit of rationalism ( "和的盡理精神" ) and the ultimate development of the spirit of analytic reason (分解的盡理精神), the materialization of operational rationality  (理性之運用表現) and the realization of the structures of Reason ( 理性之架構表現) and a methods of expansion of Truth from within (外延真理) and the internalisation or internal accommodation of Truth (內容真理). Tang advises us to consciously use western philosophy to rein in the excesses of Chinese philosophy. To Hung, there is much to be gained from a closer integration of Chinese cultural philosophies with western cultural philosophies, between those of the the East and those of the West and between those Chinese scholars working in the PRC and those working outside of it.