Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

12-2012

Abstract

This paper explores the Confucian veneration of the past and its commitment to transmittingthe tradition of the sages. It does so by placing it in the context of the historicaltrajectory from the May Fourth attacks on Confucianism and its scientistic, iconoclasticapproach to “saving China,” to similar approaches to China’s modernization in laterdecades, through the market reforms that launched China into global capitalism, to therevival of Confucianism in recent years. It reexamines the association of the Pragmatismof John Dewey and Hu Shih with the scientistic iconoclasm of the May Fourth Movementand argues that a broader scrutiny of Dewey’s and Hu’s works, beyond the period whenDewey visited China, reveals a more balanced treatment of tradition, science, and modernization.Pragmatists believe in reconstructing, not destroying, traditions in their pursuit ofgrowth for individuals and communities. Despite a tension between the progress-orientedhistorical consciousness that Dewey inherited from the Enlightenment (a consciousnessthat some consider as characteristic of modern Western historiography) and the historicalconsciousness underlying Chinese historiographical tradition (one that views the past asa didactic “mirror”), it is possible to reconcile the Pragmatic reconstruction of traditionwith the Confucian veneration of the past. This paper argues for a Pragmatic Confucianapproach to Chinese traditions that is selective in its transmission of the past and flexibleenough in its “preservation” to allow for progressive change.

Discipline

Arts and Humanities

Research Areas

Humanities

Publication

History and Theory

Volume

51

Issue

4

First Page

23

Last Page

44

ISSN

0018-2656

Identifier

10.1111/j.1468-2303.2012.00645.x]

Publisher

Wiley

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2303.2012.00645.x

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