Sinocentric Confucian genealogies and the forgotten Japanese contribution to modern Confucianism

In the late 1980s, the Chinese philosopher Yu Ying-shih coined his famous metaphor for Confucianism’s plight in modern China as a “wandering soul” (游魂 youhun). What the metaphor conveyed first of all was the insight that Confucianism was dominant in traditional Chinese life only for so long as its “soul” was institutionalized in various “bodies.” These bodies included the political and educational institutions of dynastic China, as credentialed Confucian Learning was the gateway to employment in the imperial public service and to regional administrative, literary and educational employments. Such bodies also included the community life of the rural masses, shaped by Confucian rites and folk moralities in family life. The metaphor’s second insight was that Confucianism “cannot remain at the level of speculation for a long time” without embodiment in such ways of life, since it is a practice-oriented philosophy dedicated to moral and ritual self-cultivation and to the moral perfectibility of institutions, from the family though to the state.

Yu’s conclusion is that Confucianism’s decline to an ethereal, disembodied status followed the gradual collapse of its institutional bodies beginning in the mid-19th century: the corruption and final dissolution of the imperial civil service examination system, the replacement of Confucian Learning with Western sciences and humanities in newly established universities, the fall of the monarchy, and the wars, revolutionary campaigns and disasters that upended traditional rural family life during the 20th century. Yet what to make of the burgeoning academic discourse today on Confucianism in Chinese, Taiwanese, South Korean, Singaporean, European and American universities? Could this academic discourse be the new, institutional body for Confucianism’s ghost to find a modern home in? The answer for Yu is no. Such an academic discourse severed from (largely) institutionalized practices and ways of life is mere speculation—it is empty or clever talk.

A debate can certainly be had about the fairness of Yu’s judgement. After a century of wandering, perhaps Confucianism is now finding renewed embodiment within the institutions of academic philosophy, and in a Chinese “Confucian revival” of educational, religious and ritual practices that has recently gained momentum.