The transcendent and the mundane in the intellectual world of Chang Ping-lin (1869-1936)

Abstract

Chang Ping-lin (1869-1936) was the main architect of modem Chinese nationalism and a pivotal figure in China’s transformation from empire to republic. Yet in the English-speaking world he remains a relatively obscure entity compared with his Revolutionary comrades (Sun Yat-sen, Huang Hsing, Sung Chiao-jen and others) or with his erstwhile Reformist colleagues (such as K’ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch’i-ch’ao). Even less well-known and understood is Chang Ping-lin as a thinker, compared with his contemporaries, Yen Fu, T’an Ssü-t’ung, Wang Kuo-wei, Ts’ai Ylian-p’ei and Hsiung Shih-li, to name but a few. Yet Chang’s philosophical achievement w-as second to none of the above-mentioned. In fact Chang Ping-lin was probably the single philosopher that modem China has ever produced in terms of intellectual magnitude, vigour, methodology and depth. This preliminary study of Chang sets out to tackle this blind spot in Western studies of modem Chinese intellectual history. In China itself, the study of Chang Ping-lin suffers from a different kind of limitation, largely due to party politics and related historiographical prejudice. As a partisan of the people and a non-conformist in party politics, Chang Ping-lin, both the man and his thought, has very often been treated inadequately or unjustly by official historians of both the Communist and the Nationalist camps. Apart from many other reasons, including ideological differences and Chang’s own condemnation of both the CCP and the KMT (ranging from Sun Yat-sen to Chiang Kai-shek), the sources of this misunderstanding and animosity can be traced back, respectively, to Chang’s opponent, Wu Chih-hui, and, ironically, Chang’s student, Lu Hsiin, both of whom (posthumously in Lu Hsiin’s case) were figures of great intellectual authority in the KMT and CCP regimes respectively. Lu Hsiin advanced the view that Chang’s overall intellectual achievement was less impressive than his political contribution to the 1911 Revolution. This view has since inspired, in the PRC, a prevailing portrait of Chang Ping-lin as a political suspect who in his later years degenerated into a reactionary and a useless scholar, whose earlier revolutionary contribution, even, becomes questionable because of his schism with Sun Yat-sen. Moreover, Chang’s idealistic philosophy is often dogmatically dismissed. On the other side of party politics, Chang did not fare much better, though he has been generally respected as the last master of classical learning. But this image of Chang suggests that he was at best a custodian of traditional Chinese culture, virtually an "antiquarian phenomenon" having little to do with modem reality. However these two views may differ in detail, they reveal a common perception of Chang as a man of the past and an assumption that his Faustian activities were largely misplaced and his pursuit of a Chinese renaissance quixotic and irrelevant. This study intends to redress all these misconceptions of Chang Ping-lin, and in particular, to balance Lu Hsiin’s one-sided assessment by recognising Chang’s remarkable intellectual achievement, and by highlighting his "dialogue" with the intellectual heritage of the West, in the various fields of linguistics, political thought, historiography, classical scholarship and cultural criticism, as well as philosophy proper. Chang’s versatile writing and profound insight in all these fields amount to what can only be described as "the Chang Ping-lin phenomenon". The present research into this phenomenon attempts to argue that the reverse of Lu Hsiin’s assessment is closer to the truth. External factors aside, many of the misconceptions and misunderstandings, it would seem to me, also arose from the ambiguity and contradictions in Chang’s own thought. The dual characters of Chang’s mind is indeed evident and may have much to do with the double role he assumed as at once an engaged scholar and a disinterested political activist. More importantly, it reflects the conscious movement to and from what he himself revealed as the worlds of the transcendent and the mundane. I therefore take this fundamental dichotomy in the structure of Chang’s thought, together with the tension between scholarship and politics, as the key to disclosing the inner world of Chang Pinglin. With such a perspective I intend to demonstrate that the tension between the transcendent and the mundane, and between scholarship and politics, actually provided the essential dynamic in his vigorous intellectual discourse. Thus perceived, most of the ambiguities, confusions or contradictions become more apparent than real. In short, this topical study attempts to show that the real Chang Ping-lin was hardly an "antiquarian phenomenon", on the contrary, his thought went far ahead of his time. Even his immediate impact on the ensuing May-Fourth generation was much greater than has been previously acknowledged. Show more