Gan Yang and Liu Xiaofeng on Re-reading the West

Gan Yang and Liu Xiaofeng, “Re-Reading the West”[1]

Introduction and Translation by Matthew Dean
 
Introduction
 
This text might be read as a short manifesto from Gan Yang 甘阳 (b. 1952) and Liu Xiaofeng 刘小枫 (b. 1956), China’s most influential and prolific acolytes of the American political philosopher Leo Strauss (1899-1973). It is a general introduction that appears at the beginning of every volume in their co-edited series “Sources of Western Scholarship,” an ambitious scholarly effort to introduce Western classics and commentary to China. Among its titles are Jacob Klein’s Plato’s Trilogy, Karl Löwith’s From Hegel to Nietzsche, and Leibnitz’s Théodicée. In their introduction, Gan and Liu discuss a problem in the way Chinese scholars have been reading Western classics. In their view, Chinese scholars for the last century have been reading these classics in a fevered search to solve China’s problems. Gan and Liu see this approach as pathological, and assert that the problem has become so great that it must now be solved by a succeeding generation, starting with the series they are producing:  “China became the disease and the West became the cure. For this reason, ‘reading the West’ meant going there and finding the remedy that would cure China’s illness, and ‘studying abroad’ meant going to the West to seek out the truth that would correct China’s errors. Viewing the West with the attitude and mentality of a sick person first created sick Chinese intellectuals, which subsequently led to all sorts of sick Chinese discourse and scholarship.”
 
Both Gan and Liu studied abroad, Gan at University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought with Allan Bloom, and Liu at the University of Basel where he studied theology under Heinrich Ott. How do they escape their own criticism of studying abroad? How do Gan and Liu differ from the “sick readers” of the West? Gan and Liu demonstrate their own healthy view by insisting that no easy fixes or quick answers are possible and that, instead, scholars must now enter into the context of the West for its own sake. “Only by reading the West within the Western context can we genuinely understand what Western thinking and learning are for…A healthy reader knows that if the West is in possession of some remedy, then it is primarily a remedy for a Western disease.”
 
Gan and Liu resist the temptation to mediate between two radically different traditions. Without an understanding of the fundamental problems of the West, there is no way of knowing which to discard as useless for solving the problems of contemporary China. “A healthy reader of the West understands that without first explicating these inner discrepancies, contradictions, and conflicts of Western civilization, then it does not matter whether you structure your Eastern/Western civilization comparison as a binary opposition, or whether you advocate some sort of ‘East/West Kumbaya’ cultural fusion, both are ridiculous.”
 
This is not the only place our authors have expressed disenchantment with studying abroad. In their co-written polemic against the Yenching Academy they quote Hu Shih (1891-1962): “Although they belong to one of the most ancient civilizations, indeed the leader of East Asian civilization, not long ago they suddenly were forced to learn from others. Is there anything more shameful than to become a follower nation? That students must go abroad to learn is the nation’s shame!” Denouncing the study abroad movement has become something of a theme, if not a genre, whose more recent representative is Zhang Yongle’s “The Harm of Studying Abroad”.
 
This text is noteworthy in that its authors list their own influences. They make explicit their own traditional understanding of learning, where “traditional” means “handed down.” In their words, “The growth of scholarship ultimately relies on its being passed down and accumulated.” They then list their influences in Western scholarship, all of whom are Chinese. They are editors, translators, historians, and philosophers who spearheaded the introduction of Western philosophy and classics in China. Although the scholars who taught Gan and Liu abroad were not committed to the transmission of Western classics into the Chinese language, their absence from the list of influences is still conspicuous. From this conspicuous omission of Western influences on their Western scholarship, they can be seen to practice the “healthy” approach to the West that they wish to bequeath to the next generation.[2]
 
This essay is the propaedeutic through which every Chinese student of the Western classics will pass in order to read the likes of Leibnitz, Löwith, and Klein. It is in the same category as Walter Kaufmann’s English introductions to Nietzsche. One’s access to a foreign culture can only come through certain apertures. Gan and Liu constitute one such aperture. Hence, this essay will be of interest to those who wish to follow China’s reception (or re-reception) of Western thought.
 
Translation
 
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Chinese scholars pointed out that Chinese history is composed of successive layers. However, they did not seem to wonder whether Western history might not be similarly composed of layers. The reason Chinese scholars proposed this “layered interpretation of history” was because they believed that Chinese history was full of superstition, myth, error, and had also been told that Western history embodied science, reason, and truth. In the words of Gu Jiegang 顾颉刚[3] (1893-1980), when Hu Shih 胡適 (1891-1962) “brought Western historical methods back to China,” it led that generation of scholars to awaken to the fact that many of China’s ancient texts were “forgeries 伪书” and China’s ancient history had used those “forgeries” to create a “pseudohistory 伪史” . They did not seem to wonder whether what Hu Shih called “Western historical methods” might similarly be a “Western pseudohistory” itself built on “forgeries”.
 
It is no exaggeration to say that there has been a sort of pathology in the way in which Chinese have read the West over the past century, in that China became the disease and the West became the cure. For this reason, “reading the West” meant going there and finding the remedy that would cure China’s illness, and “studying abroad” meant going to the West to seek out the truth that would correct China’s errors. Viewing the West with the attitude and mentality of a sick person first created sick Chinese intellectuals, which subsequently led to all sorts of sick Chinese discourse and scholarship, whose specialty was not only to constantly superficialize, instrumentalize, and idealize Western scholarship, but also to constantly simplify, distort, and demonize Chinese civilization. This pathological reading of the West is the source of the real infections that have created all sorts of problems for modern China.
 
The next generation of Chinese scholars in this new century must shed this pathology, and begin reading the West anew. This does not mean going to the West yet again in search of some special formula or secret recipe. It rather means correcting our attitude:  first establishing a proper sense of ourselves, and then reading the West with a healthy attitude and a sound mind. The healthy way to read the West is to understand the Western context. A healthy reader knows that if the West is in possession of some remedy, then it is primarily a remedy for a Western disease. For example Platonic philosophy aimed to cure the ills of ancient Greek democracy; Augustinian theology sought to cure the ills of the ancient Roman republic; Machiavellian history took on the ills of Christianity; Rawls’ Theory of Justice sought to cure the ills of Anglo-American utilitarianism; Nietzsche and Heidegger wanted to cure the ills of European metaphysics. Only by reading the West within the Western context can we genuinely understand what Western thinking and learning are for. More simply, the way toward a healthy reading of the West is not the same as the past pathological reading. This kind of reading is first focused on Western problems and the development of those problems, and not on seeing the West as offering ready-made answers to China’s problems.
 
A healthy reading of the West therefore will fundamentally reject a general comparison of Chinese and Western civilizations. What a healthy reading of the West finds more interesting is to compare the various disparities, contradictions, and conflicts within Western civilization itself, for example the conflict between the two wellsprings of Western civilization (Athens and Jerusalem), the conflict between ancient and modern Western thought, the difference between England’s form of government and America’s form of government, the rise and fall of American liberalism and conservatism, etc. A healthy reader of the West understands that without first explicating these inner discrepancies, contradictions, and conflicts of Western civilization, then it doesn’t matter whether you structure your Eastern/Western civilization comparison as a binary opposition, or whether you advocate some sort of “East/West Kumbaya” cultural fusion, both are ridiculous.
 
Chinese scholars who embrace a healthy reading of the West maintain an attitude of skepticism toward the systems of Western thought, and are even more vigilant in the face of the various fashionably strange theories found on Western college campuses. This is because a healthy reading of the West has reason to suspect that Western academia is getting worse with each generation. Neologisms are coined more quickly and fashionably strange theories are cycled through with greater frequency, which only illustrates the limited shelf life of this kind of scholarship. A healthy Chinese reading of the West particularly maintains an attitude of knowing bemusement toward the drum beat of what is called “anti-Eurocentrism 反西方中心论” on Western university campuses, because these healthy readers know that although this argument begins with good intentions, it can often just result in the strengthening of Eurocentrism. As they say, there is nothing new under the sun.
 
Because we hope that a growing number of Chinese will re-read the West cum mente sana in corpore sano, we therefore present this collection of “Sources of Western Scholarship”. The general focus of this series is on the following aspects: first, a close reading and elucidation of Western classic works and authors; second, Western scholarship’s analysis and explication of the historical development of several important questions in the history of Western civilization; third, research into “the history of disciplines”, i.e. research into and reflection on the historic development of various modern branches of learning and the questions they examine. This series of books contains nothing that can provide ready-made answers to China’s problems because these authors focus their discussions on the problems of the West itself. But we believe that Chinese scholars’ reading of the West must avoid seeking short-term gains and quick profits 急功近利 and being satisfied with superficial knowledge 浅尝辄止, because the desire to use quick fixes to “transplant” systems of Western thought to China is bound to fail. In fact, all sorts of popular Western concepts like democracy, freedom, and so on, are themselves rife with ambiguity. The next generation of Chinese scholars must study the West in the Western context, deeply probing various Western arguments, including their contradictory concepts and viewpoints. Only then will we understand things inside and out, and be able to decide whether to accept or reject something.
 
Twenty years ago, we edited “The Library of Modern Western Scholarship 现代西方学术文库” and the “New Knowledge Library 新知文库” for the Sanlian Press , and this work earned the generous support of many scholars of previous generations. Now, sadly, most of these scholars have passed away. The growth of scholarship ultimately relies on its being passed down and having an accumulated impact. When we were young, the translated works of Zhu Shenghao 朱生豪 (1912-1944), Luo Niansheng 罗念生 (1904-1990) and others left a deep impression on us.[4] We were also fortunate as young people to have the unforgettable guidance of teachers like Tscha Hung 洪谦 (1909-1992), Zong Baihua 宗白华 (1897-1986), Xiong Wei 熊伟 (1911-1994), Jia Lin 贺麟 (1902-1992), Wang Jiuxing 王玖兴 (1916-2003), Yang Yizhi 杨一之 (1912-1989), Wang Taiqing 王太庆 (1922-1999) and others.[5] It is these scholars who made us see that reading the West with a healthy attitude and sound mind is a necessary condition for the healthy growth of Chinese thought and scholarship. We hope with this series “Sources of Western Scholarship” to honor these teachers by expressing our sincere gratitude. We also hope this series will grow alongside the next generation of China’s healthy readers!
 
Notes

[1] 重新阅读西方 is the general introduction to the series “Sources of Western Scholarship” 西学源流 co-edited by Gan and Liu. It has been reprinted in Gan’s collection of essays Civilization, Nation, University 文明·国家·大学.

[2] On conspicuous omissions, cf. Leo Strauss, “On a Forgotten Kind of Writing” in What is Political Philosophy? (Chicago: Free Press, 1959).

[3] Gu Jiegang was one of the main forces, along with Hu Shih, behind the “Doubting Antiquity School” 疑古派, which doubted classical Chinese texts long considered authentic.

[4] Zhu Shenghao produced the first translation of Shakespeare’s complete works in Chinese. Luo Niansheng produced the first translations of the major plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, as well as Homer’s Iliad and Aristotle’s Poetics and Rhetoric.

[5] Tscha Hung was the only Chinese member of the Vienna Circle, whose other members also included Moritz Schlick, Kurt Gödel, Otto Neurath, and Rudolf Carnap; Zong Baihua was a pioneering figure of the study of aesthetics in China, professor of philosophy at Peking University; Xiong Wei was the earliest Chinese translator and interpreter of Heidegger; Jia Lin, major representative of Neo-Confucianism, translated Hegel’s “The Shorter Logic”, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Phenomenology of Spirit, Lectures on the Philosophy of History into Chinese; Wang Jiuxing was co-editor of the Complete Works of Hegel in Chinese; Yang Yizhi was on the translating and editing committee of the Complete Works of Hegel; and Wang Taiqing, historian and translator of Western philosophy, taught philosophy at Peking University from 1979 until his death in 1999.