Introduction: five trends in confucian studies

 
JOHN H. BERTHRONG
 
 
Journal of East-West Thought 
debating point in the study of Confucian intellectual history. The argument goes back 
to the Song Neo-Confucian revival. The kernel of the debate is the assertion that Zhu 
Xi and his fellow 
daoxue
colleagues selected and valorized a vision of Confucian 
intellectual history that was biased towards the contributions of the Northern and 
Southern Song intellectuals scene provided by scholars primarily interested in 
philosophical questions. For instance, in Zhu’s and Lü Zuqian’s
（
Lü Tsu-
ch’ien1137-1181
呂祖謙
) famous anthology, 
Jinsi lu/Reflections on Things at Hand
, 
included only a select few Northern Song thinkers, namely Zhou Dunyi, Zhang Zai, 
Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi. Equally great philosophers such as Shao Yong and 
members of the Hu School are excluded. Also excluded are famous scholars, poets, 
historians and public intellectuals and political figures such as Sima Guang, Su Shi, 
Ouyang Shu and Wang Anshi—just to mention a few immensely important 
Confucians not to make it into the anthology. Although there were complex reasons 
for Zhu and Lü’s selection matrix, it is clear to modern scholars that the two friends 
selected Northern Song figures who exclusively belonged to the most philosophically 
inclined membership of that outstanding generation of Confucians intellectuals. 
A common complaint about the emerging account of the genealogy of New 
Confucianism is that it, like its Song predecessors, privileges philosophers as the 
leaders of the movement. Therefore scholars such as Professor Yu argue that his 
teacher Qian Mu should not be included in this highly self-selecting group of modern 
Confucian philosophers. This is an important point. However, it is still possible to 
take a more irenic position on New Confucianism. If we take New Confucianism, like 
its Neo-Confucian forbears, to include a much richer cast of characters than those Zhu 
Xi singled out for being part of the 
daotong
, then we can include and discuss a wide-
ranging group of contemporary scholars. For instance, we can provisionally grant 
Professor Yu’s assessment that Qian Mu was not a New Confucian if we hold that to 
be a New Confucian means to support a particular philosophical position and at the 
same time note that Qian Mu was part and parcel of the larger revival of interest in 
Confucian studies in the 20
th
Century. No one has done more to restore and renew the 
study and appreciation of Zhu Xi’s epic philosophical synthesis that Qian Mu. 
Moreover, Qian did this in spite of the fact that Zhu Xi’s 
daoxue
was not the favored 
expression of the authentic Confucian worldview according to the majority of those 
within the fellowship of New Confucianism. Rather, most New Confucians were