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CHAPTER 15 The Structure and Function of the Confucian Intellectual zn Ancient China Tu WEI-MING The emergence of classical Confucian humanism in the sixth century B.C.E., as an expression of the Axial Age, significantly shaped the ethico-religious direction of Chinese culture.1 Although the mode of thought fashioned by Confucius (551-479) and by two of his many followers, Mencius (371-289?) and Hsun Tzu (fl. 298-238), was only one of several prevalent intellectual currents prior to the unification of China by the Ch'in dynasty in 221 , it was the dominant spiritual force that eventually defined the otherwise nebulous concept of "Chinese culture" (Chung-kuo wen-hua). Fung Yu-lan, who was associated with the anti-Confucian movement during the Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic of China, has recently attempted to formulate his interpretive stance on Confucianism. He observed that Confucianism helped inspire the self-consciousness of the Chinese people as a distinct cultural entity.2 Fung's observation is not particularly innovative; it simply affirms what Ch'ien Mu, T'ang Chun-i, Hsu Fu-kuan, Mou Tsung-san, and other New Confucian Humanists have taken for granted for decades.3 However, his willingness to reopen the Confucian question as historically significant in the Levensonian sense is unusual because it opens the door for Marxist historians to explore the roots of Chinese culture in Confucian terms without directly confronting the issue of valuating the role of Confucianism in modern China. Whether this line of questioning will inevitably lead to a complete rethinking of Confucian China and its modern transformation is unknown, but scholars in the PRC have already undertaken major research projects on the Confucian phenomenon as a necessary step toward a more sophisticated understanding of the formation of Chinese culture.4 360 The Confucian intellectual in Ancient China 361 From the perspective of this renaissance of Confucian studies in the last five years, Fung Yu-lan's observation is symptomatic of a collective enterprise to probe the defining characteristics of ancient Chinese thought and society. This enterprise, led by some of the most brilliant minds on the Chinese intellectual scene, may well lead to a fundamental re-interpretation of the inner logic of Confucianism , the role of Confucian humanism in traditional China, and the relevance of Confucian ethics to contemporary China, if not to a complete rethinking of Confucian China and its modern transformation .5 The upsurge of interest in the relationship between Confucian ethics and the entrepreneurial spirit in industrial East Asia has raised challenging questions about the Weberian thesis, not only in terms of its specific applicability to China, but also in terms of its general validity as an explanatory model for the modernizing process. A Confucian response to the Weberian interpretation of modernity, as a way of addressing the complexity of the pluralistic world view of the twentieth century, may well lead to the development of a new conceptual framework for comparative civilizational studies.6 My purpose in presenting this brief analysis of the structure and function of the Confucian intellectual in ancient China is twofold: to offer a phenomenological description of an important historical event in the Axial Age, particularly the institutionalization of Confucian cultural values, and to suggest a method for assessing the farreaching implications of this event in order to understand Chinese political culture in general. I am acutely aware that this is a formidable task and that my research so far allows me to deal with these issues only in a preliminary way. However, my exposure to the most recent literature on Confucian studies East and West has reaffirmed my belief that it is through reanimation of the old that we can attain the new.7 By "attaining the new," I am not referring to the future of Confucianism, but to a more appropriate methodology, or as I have already alluded to, a new conceptual apparatus. In my essay on "Way, Learning and Politics in Classical Confucian Humanism," I made the following claim: The priestly function and philosophical role in both the public image and the self-definition of the Confucian scholar compels us to characterize him not only as a "literatus" but also as an "intellectual." The Confucian intellectual was an activist. His practical reasoning urged him to confront the world of Realpolitik and to transform it from within. His faith in the perfectibility of human nature through self-effort, the intrinsic goodness of the human community, and the authentic 362 T...

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