Tang Chun-I or Tang Junyi (, 17 January 1909 – 2 February 1978) was a
Chinese philosopher
Chinese philosophy originates in the Spring and Autumn period () and Warring States period (), during a period known as the "Hundred Schools of Thought", which was characterized by significant intellectual and cultural developmen ...
, who was one of the leading exponents of
New Confucianism
New Confucianism () is an intellectual movement of Confucianism that began in the early 20th century in Republic of China (1912–1949), Republican China, and further developed in post-Mao era People's Republic of China, contemporary China. It ...
. He was influenced by
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
and
Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...
, as well as by earlier
Confucian
Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a Religious Confucianism, religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, ...
thought.
Biography
Tang, the son of a wealthy scholar, was the first born of six children in
Sichuan
Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...
, China.
Tang was briefly a student of
Liang Shuming
Liang Shuming (, Wade-Giles ''Liang Shu-ming''; sometimes ''Liang Sou-ming'', October 18, 1893 – June 23, 1988), born Liang Huanding (), courtesy name Shouming (), was a Chinese philosopher, politician, and writer in the Rural Reconstruct ...
before transferring to
National Central University
National Central University (NCU, ; Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: ''Kwet-li̍p Chung-yong Thài-ho̍k'', Wade–Giles: ''Kuo2 Li4 Chung Yang Ta4 Hsüeh2'' or ''中大'', ''Chung-ta'') is a public research university with long-standing traditions based in Taiwa ...
.
In 1927, Tang became a follower of
Xiong Shili
Xiong Shili (, 1885 – May 23, 1968) was a Chinese essayist and philosopher whose major work ''A New Treatise on Vijñaptimātra'' (新唯識論, ''Xin Weishi Lun'') is a Confucian critique of the Buddhist ''Vijñapti-mātra'' "consciousness ...
after attending a series of lectures. He graduated from National Central University in 1933, soon after becoming a lecturer there. In 1940, Tang met his colleague and lifelong friend
Mou Zongsan
Mou Zongsan (; 1909–1995) was a Chinese philosopher and translator. He was born in Shandong province and graduated from Peking University. In 1949 he moved to Taiwan and later to Hong Kong, and he remained outside of mainland China for the res ...
.
In 1943 he married Tse Ting Kwong, an educational psychology graduate. 1944 he joined the National Central University Philosophy Department as a full-time professor, and later he even became head of the department.
Only five years later, in 1949, Tang left Mainland China to live in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
, as part of an exodus of Chinese intellectuals to the
British colony
The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remnants of the former Bri ...
.
Tang went into exile in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
in 1949, after the declaration of the People's Republic of China, living there for the rest of his life.
There he helped found the
New Asia College
New Asia College is a constituent college of the Chinese University of Hong Kong located in Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong.
History
New Asia College was founded in 1949 by Chinese scholars Ch'ien Mu (Qian Mu), Tang Junyi (Tang Chun-i), ...
, which was integrated into the
Chinese University of Hong Kong
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public research university in Ma Liu Shui, Hong Kong, formally established in 1963 by a charter granted by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. It is the territory's second-oldest university an ...
in 1963. He served as the founding chairman and the first Chair Professor of the Department of Philosophy of CUHK. Tang's time in Hong Kong was marked by his mission to salvage traditional Chinese culture in a time when China was ruled by an anti-traditionalist government.
[Yin, C. H. (2018). The Experiences and Participation of Immigrant Intellectuals in the Cultural Development of Hong Kong: A Study of Tang Junyi. China Report, 54(1), 48–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/0009445517744407] He established
New Asia College
New Asia College is a constituent college of the Chinese University of Hong Kong located in Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong.
History
New Asia College was founded in 1949 by Chinese scholars Ch'ien Mu (Qian Mu), Tang Junyi (Tang Chun-i), ...
, which to Tang symbolized his ambitious plan to save Chinese culture. Tang was particularly fixated on the fact that New Asia College was established exactly 2500 years after the birth of Confucius, often claiming that the timing was not merely coincidental, but significant as it marked a new era in Chinese history. In the 1970s, he became one of the members of the school board of
New Asia Middle School
New Asia Middle School (), abbreviated as NAMS, is an aided secondary school founded in 1973. It is located at Farm Road, Kau Pui Lung, Kowloon, Hong Kong. The school was founded by Prof. Ch'ien Mu as a non-profit-making Chinese secondary s ...
.
His work has mainly been influential in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United States. In 2009, a bronze statue was erected in the New Asia College campus to celebrate his centenary.
Philosophy
Tang is most associated with
New Confucianism
New Confucianism () is an intellectual movement of Confucianism that began in the early 20th century in Republic of China (1912–1949), Republican China, and further developed in post-Mao era People's Republic of China, contemporary China. It ...
and
Neo-Confucianism
Neo-Confucianism (, often shortened to ''lǐxué'' 理學, literally "School of Principle") is a moral, ethical, and metaphysical Chinese philosophy
Chinese philosophy originates in the Spring and Autumn period () and Wa ...
. In his study of Contemporary New Ru Learning,
Fang Keli
Fang Keli (; 28 June 1938 – 21 April 2020) was a Chinese New Confucian philosopher and a member of the Chinese Communist Party. He was best known for his work in New Confucianism and his theories which attempt to fusion Marxism and Chinese cul ...
identified Tang as part of the second generation of New Confucians, along with
Mou Zongsan
Mou Zongsan (; 1909–1995) was a Chinese philosopher and translator. He was born in Shandong province and graduated from Peking University. In 1949 he moved to Taiwan and later to Hong Kong, and he remained outside of mainland China for the res ...
and
Xu Fuguan
Hsu Fu-kuan or Xu Fuguan (); 1902/03 – 1982) was a Chinese intellectual and historian who made notable contributions to Confucian studies. He is a leading member of New Confucianism, a philosophical movement initiated by Xu's teacher and frien ...
.
[Swain, Tony. ''Confucianism in China: an Introduction''. Bloomsbury Academic, an Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2017.
Chapter 9.] In 1958 Tang, Mou, Xu, and Zhang Zhunmai co-authored A Manifesto on Chinese Culture Respectfully Announced to the People of the World.
The manifesto was an effort to revive Confucianism likely directed at Chinese people who favored adopting Western values.
Tang believed the message of Confucianism was the affirmation of human life as it exists. He contrasts Confucianism with Christianity and Buddhism, religions that promote human transcendence over the physical world or the acceptance of the physical world as an illusion, respectfully.
[Chan, Sin Yee. “Tang Junyi: Moral Idealism and Chinese Culture.” ''Contemporary Chinese Philosophy'', edited by Chung-ying Cheng and Nicholas Bunnin, Blackwell Publishers, 2002.]
While Tang advocated for a new embrace of Confucianism, he never promoted specific political orders associated with Confucianism, nor did he propose any new political order based on his philosophies. Instead, Tang examined existing political alternatives through a Confucian lens.
Liberal democracy
Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under an indirect democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into diff ...
was the political order most consistent with Confucianism because they both rest upon the idea that all humans are endowed with equal humanity.
Tang's work primarily deals with three issues: traditional Chinese philosophy, ethics and metaphysics (the two of which are fundamentally intertwined in his work), and Chinese culture.
Culture
Tang devoted much of his career to exploring how to modernize China without compromising its defining traditional values.
Tang saw the individual's connection to traditional values as the way of maintaining an authentic life that would otherwise be by threatened by the emptiness of modernity.
Chinese philosophy
With regards to the question of the individual's relation to the universe, Tang concludes that regardless of one's approach, the individual and the universe are two different expressions of one ultimate harmony.
[T'ang Chün-i. "The Individual and the World in Chinese Methodology". ''Philosophy East and West'', vol. 14, no. 3/4, 1964, pp. 293–310. ''JSTOR'', www.jstor.org/stable/1397507.] In other words, distinctions between the two are always complementary in creating the harmonious whole of existence. He argues that the lack of a dualist distinction as truth is a defining trait of Chinese philosophy.
Tang was among the most prominent advocates of Neo-Confucianism in the 20th Century (not to be confused with New Confucianism, which Tang was also part of).
One major difference between Tang and the original Neo-Confucianists is that Tang framed his work through contrasts with Western philosophy.
For example, Tang's concept of the heart-mind, a single entity responsible for cognition, emotion, and will, is an originally Neo-Confucian idea. Tang argued that the heart-mind is the key to all human understanding in his 1977 book Life, Existence, and the Horizons of the Heart-Mind.
Ethics and Metaphysics
In his book ''Heart-Mind, Objects, and Human Life'', Tang argues that the alienation experienced by people in modern societies is strongly connected to an emphasis on abstractions over concrete realities of everyday life.
Tang concludes that the metaphysical world has moral qualities because virtues help people to align themselves harmoniously with the universe. In his approach to ethics, Tang distinguishes the actual and the ethical self. The ethical self is informed by reason in order to transcend the actual self. While the actual self is bound spatially and temporally, the rational ethical self is a permanent entity in accord with truth. This is why Tang identifies the ethical self, not the actual self, as being the genuine self.
Tang attempted to systematize the moral idealism in his final book Life, Existence, and the Horizons of the Heart-Mind in 1977.
He argues that the human heart-mind, the source of cognition, emotion, and will, is key to understanding the world, and that in integrating of reason and emotion, the heart-mind can respond correctly in a given situation.
The other main point of this book is the Nine Horizons, the spheres of existence that human activity engages with.
The first three horizons are the objective world as perceived by heart-mind. The first horizon separates individuals. The second horizon separates categories. The third horizon identifies sequences, such as cause and effect or means and ends. The middle three horizons are concerned with self-reflection. The fourth horizon is the understanding of mutual perception between individuals. The fifth horizon is the understanding of symbols and meaning, including but not limited to mathematics and language. The sixth horizon is the understanding of moral conduct, which realizes the ideals we hold. Last three horizons unify the subjective and the objective in an effort to create value in our lives (what Tang calls the trans-subjective-objective horizons). The seventh horizon is the realization of a Monotheistic God. The eighth horizon is the realization of the emptiness of the self and of dharma. The ninth horizon is the flowing of Heavenly Virtue. Tang intentionally incorporated Abrahamic, Buddhist, and Confucian ideas of virtue into these last three horizons.
Notes
References and further reading
* Brill Open Access e-book.
*
External links
The Masters: Mr Tang Chun-i Chinese University of Hong Kong
Anja Steinbauer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tang, Chun-i
New Confucian philosophers
New Asia College
Republic of China philosophers
Hong Kong philosophers
Republic of China essayists
Chinese University of Hong Kong people
1909 births
1978 deaths
Writers from Yibin
Philosophers from Sichuan
Educators from Sichuan
20th-century essayists
20th-century Chinese philosophers
National University of Peking alumni