Yang Zhu Research in the Twentieth Century: With a Focus on Guo Moruo, Meng Wentong, Hou Wailu, and Liu Zehua

Abstract

Cao Feng describes two types of twentieth-century Yang Zhu-related scholarship. “Academic history” is represented by Meng Wentong and Guo Moruo; it focused on textual analysis and largely expanded the network of lineages related to Yang Zhu, reaching into Huang-Lao scholarship. “Intellectual history” since 1949 is represented by Hou Wailu and Liu Zehua. It portrays Yang Zhu’s thought system in terms of Marxist and post-Marxist ideology, respectively. Cao warns against the ideological coloring of the latter type and admires the scholarly attitude of the former.

Notes

1 See Luo Genze, ed., [Debate of ancient history], vol. 4 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1982).

2 Meng Wentong, Xian-Qin zhuzi yu lixue [Pre-Qin thinkers and study of principle] (Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2006), p108–130.

3 Ibid., 108.

4 Ibid., 109

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid., 112.

8 Ibid., 110.

9 Ibid., 112.

10 Meng Wentong even argues that the “Rang wang” and other chapters of the Zhuangzi may be Yangist works, mistakenly included by whoever compiled the text.

11 Ibid., 114.

12 Ibid., 115.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid., 117.

16 Ibid., 119.

17 Reading bu shang 不傷 as “without error,” following Guo Moruo and Chen Guying; see Chen Guying, Guanzi sipian quanshi: Jixia Daojia daibiaozuo jiexi [An explication of the Guanzi’s four chapters: Analysis of a representative text of Jixia Daoism] (Beijing: Shangwu chubanshe, 2006), 168.—Trans.

18 Meng, Xian-Qin zhuzi yu lixue, 119.

19 Ibid., 120.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid., 121.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid., 121–122.

25 Ibid., 122.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid., 123.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid., 124.

30 Ibid., 125.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid., 128.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., 129.

35 Ibid., 130.

36 Ibid.

37 Meng Wentong himself does not delineate the lineage this way. The author follows Meng’s views to lay out this genealogy in accordance with the chronology of figures, and thus these relations are not necessarily ones of direct tutelage.

38 Included in Meng Wentong. Xian-Qin zhuzi yu lixue, 191–223.

39 Guo Moruo, “Shi pipan shu” [Ten critiques], in Jixia Huang-Lao xuepai de pipan [Critique of Jixia Huang-Lao thought] (Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe, 1996), 142–173.

40 Guo Moruo believed it is because Song Xing’s ideas were close to Mozi’s that he is listed alongside Mozi in the “Fei shier zi” chapter of the Xunzi.

41 Guo, Jixia Huang-Lao xuepai de pipan, 147. Guo believed that “Peng Meng’s teacher” may have been a student of Yang Zhu, although since there was no biographical record of him passed down, he became an unnamed generation of transmission.

42 Ibid.

43 Guo Moruo distinguishes this form of egoism as “acting for oneself” (weiji 為己) from the more common form of egoism as “benefiting oneself” (liji 利己).

44 Ibid.

45 Translation adapted from Brook Ziporyn, Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2009), 5.—Trans.

46 Guo, Jixia Huang-Lao xuepai de pipan, 147.

47 Ibid., 150.

48 That is, the “Nei ye,” “Art of the Mind” I and II, and “Purifying the Mind.”—Trans.

49 Ibid., 148.

50 The former quotes Mencius 3B9, while the latter spoofs on Mencius 7B26, which states, “Those who desert the Mohist school are sure to turn to that of Yang; those who desert the Yang school are sure to turn to the Confucians.”—Trans.

51 Ibid., p. 149.

52 Ibid., p. 152.

53 Ibid.

54 See the first three chapters of He Aiguo, Xiandaixing de bentu huixiang: Jindai Yang Mo sichao yanjiu [Local echoes of modernity: A study on the modern thought trends of Yang Zhu and Mozi] (Guangzhou: Shijie tushu chuban Guangdong youxian gongsi, 2015); “Yang Zhu xuepai de jindai huohua” [The modern activation of Yangism], 20–41; “Jindai Yang Zhu xuepai xin xingxiang de goujian” [The modern construction of the new image of Yangism], 42–65; and “Shi bian er xue bian: Liang Qichao de Yangxue san bian” [Things change and studies change: Liang Qichao’s three changes of Yangism], 66–86.

55 Hou Wailu, Zhongguo sixiang tongshi [A general history of Chinese thought], vol. 1 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1995).

56 Ibid., 349.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid., 350.

63 Ibid.

64 Liu Zehua, “Yang Zhu gui ji ji qi tongzi muyang shi de zhengzhi zhuzhang” [Yang Zhu valuing oneself and his advocacy of government in the manner of a shepherd], in Zhongguo zhengzhi sixiang shi: Xian-Qin juan [A history of Chinese political thought: Pre-Qin volume] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang Renmin chubanshe, 1996), 378–384.

65 Liu, Zhongguo zhengzhi sixiang shi, 379.

66 Ibid., 380.

67 Ibid.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid., 381.

70 Ibid.

71 Ibid., 382.

72 Ibid.

73 Ibid.

74 For example, Huang Xuanmin once proposed that “the achievements of the thought and scholarship of [Liu Zehua] and his collaborators can be drawn into the ‘school of Hou Wailu,’” which received Liu Zehua’s immediate affirmation. See Liu Zehua’s preface to Huang Xuanmin and Chen Hanming, eds., Zhongguo Ruxue fazhan shi [History of the development of Chinese Confucianism] (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 2009), 2.