Abstract
This chapter examines the crises of the philosophy of moral education in the Qing Dynasty. The first half concentrates on the moral education concepts of three philosophers of enlightenment, Huang Zongxi, Wang Fuzhi, and Gu Yanwu, who agonized over the fall of the Ming Dynasty, criticized the empty talk of Neo-Confucianism and advocated practical learning. The second half discusses how the philosophers responded to Western challenges in the late Qing Dynasty. It covers the advocacy by the Self-Strengthening Movement of using Confucianism as the Substance and Western science and technology as Utility—Chinese Substance and Western Utility—and discusses the reformists’ advocacy of interpenetrating Chinese learning and Western learning.
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Notes
- 1.
Chinese Substance and Western Utility refers to the proposition of the Self-Strengthening Movement in the late Qing Dynasty that China should follow Confucian moral doctrines as the core of Chinese culture but at the same time learn Western science and technology for the purpose of utility.
- 2.
Chen Liang’s argument was concluded by Chen Fuliang in Chen Fuliang’s book.
- 3.
Gu Yanwu had expressed the meaning of it in his book, but the exact epigram that “the rise and fall of the nation is the responsibility of every ordinary people” was concluded and paraphrased by Liang Qichao in his book entitled Collections from the Ice-Drinker’s Studio.
- 4.
The Self-Strengthening Movement was an institutional reform initiated by some high-ranking scholar-generals during the late Qing dynasty to strengthen China by learning military affairs, industry, and modern science and technology from the West.
- 5.
The Hundred Days’ Reform was a cultural, political, and educational reform movement in 1898 initiated by a few reformists and supported by the young Emperor Guangxu. The reform lasted for only 103 days and was cracked down on by powerful conservatives.
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You, Z., Rud, A.G., Hu, Y. (2018). From Practical Learning to Chinese Substance and Western Utility: The Philosophy of Moral Education in an Era of Crises. In: The Philosophy of Chinese Moral Education. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56434-4_10
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