Historical Survey of Qian Mu’s Yangming Learning

Qian Mu went through a substantial intellectual transformation from Yangming Learning to Zhu Xi Learning during his lifetime. This article comprehensively examines his discourse on Yangming Learning, dividing it into four distinct periods. In his youth, he held Yangming Learning in high regard as an ideal for the social reformation. He established a conceptual framework that prioritized Neo-Confucianism (理学) over Han Learning (漢学), and Yangming Learning over Zhu Xi Learning. During the transitional period (the second Sino-Japanese War era), he began to question Yangming Learning and explore Zhu Xi Learning. During his wandering period (primarily in the early 1950s), he was torn between his personal career aspirations (represented by Wang Yangming) and his academic pursuits (represented by Zhu Xi). Serving as the president of New Asia College in Hong Kong at that time, the spirit of Yangming Learning proved instrumental in helping him overcome many challenges. Despite this, he remained hesitant to make a definitive choice. However, in his later years (from 1960s onward), he devoted himself to Zhu Xi Learning and highly revered Zhu Xi’s teachings, concurrently delivering harsh criticisms of Yangming Learning and ultimately rejecting it. This article argues that Qian Mu’s exploration of Yangming Learning is not entirely an academic endeavor but rather a Confucian practice intertwined with his own life-long pursuits and emotions. His stance on Yangming Learning was profoundly influenced by the zeitgeist, social environment, and his own situation. Furthermore, his comprehension of Yangming Learning both influenced and was influenced by the research on the history of the Chinese thought. On the one hand, the stance of Neo-Confucianism and the perspective of Yangming Learning influenced his evaluation of Han Learning in the Qing dynasty. On the other hand, the theory of the Zhedong Scholarship (浙東学術) by the Qing scholar Zhang Xuecheng used to serve as scholarly support for him in drawing on the Wang Yangming’s thought. However, as he shifted toward Zhu Xi Learning, the intellectual chain connecting Wang Yangming, Huang Zongxi, and Zhang Xuecheng gradually disconnected.