On the Significance of Sixteenth Century Confucianism in China: Reflections on the Scholarship of Shimada Kenji and Mizoguchi Yūzō

Title

On the Significance of Sixteenth Century Confucianism in China: Reflections on the Scholarship of Shimada Kenji and Mizoguchi Yūzō

Author

Zhen Wu

Page

199-228

DOI

Abstract

Since the 1920’s, studies of sixteenth_century Confucianism have moved on to a new stage in China. Scholars started to use modern western concepts to reframe discus- sions and remodel interpretations. For example, one of the most significant adoptions is the deploy of the concept of “modern times” and “modern world.” In comparison, a lar- ger number of the Postwar generation of Japanese Sinologists, influenced by the trend of “introspecting modern times,” also use the concept of “modern-world” as the frame of analyses. Kenji Shimada, one of the postwar generation scholars, pivoted his discussion on the dialectics between “Modernity in China and China in the modern world.” In other words, how do we compare and contrast modernity of Chinese characteristics with mod- ernity as a universal concept? With this comparison and contrast, Kenji Shimada discov- ered the “modern spirit” in China even before the influence of western thoughts. After the eighties, Yūzō Mizouguchi used the concept of “pre-modern times” as a basic parameter in his study of modern Chinese thoughts. In terms of methodology, he refused to apply Western concepts indiscriminately. And in terms of historical narrative, with the analytical frame of “pre-modern times,” he tried to find out key factors which help to shape modern Chinese thoughts. Although their concepts of “modern times” dif- fered, Yūzō Mizouguchi and Kenji Shimada have worked toward the same goal in gen- eral: to search roots of modern thoughts through studies of the sixteenth-century Confu- cianism in China. A comprehensive survey of Japanese Sinologist studies in the past fifty years in- spires us in at least two aspects: a). Western Sinology, in the area of Modern Chinese Studies, has gone through three paradigm shifts: from “Western Centrism” to “China Centrism” to “Public Domain;” while Japanese Sinologists, wavering between Western and non-Western paradigms, insist on an unique approach and have formed new per- spectives. b). As Chinese Studies out of the native land, Japanese Sinology provides us with new visions and perspectives complementary to ours.

Keyword

modern world, modern times, pre-modern times, modern spirit, the other

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