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Wang Yang-ming and the Ideology of Sun Yat-sen*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

A. James Gregor  and
Maria Hsia Chang
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Extract

An effective political ideology is invariably the result of the intersection of a number of discrete influences. In the first instance, a political leader is almost always possessed of some set of philosophic and political convictions that he has, for one reason or another, made his own. The ideas of the Epicureans and of John Locke regularly surface in the political thought of Thomas Jefferson, and elements of the thought of Karl Marx, G. W. F. Hegel and N. G. Chernyshevski are mixed inextricably in the political ideology of V. I. Lenin. As much might be said of almost every political leader who makes any pretense at ideological sophistication.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , July 1980 , pp. 388 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1980

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References

1 For a more complete treatment of Sun Yat-sen's relationship to traditional Confucianism, see Gregor, A. James and Chang, Maria Hsia, “Confucianism and the Political Thought of Sun Yat-sen,” Philosophy East and West (forthcoming)Google Scholar. That Sun's revised Confucianism has contemporary relevance, see Gregor, A. James and Chang, Maria Hsia, “Anti-Confucianism: Mao's Last Campaign,” Asian Survey, 19 (11 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for the modern character of Sun's ideology, see Gregor, A. James and Chang, Maria Hsia, “Na-zionalfascismo and the Revolutionary Nationalism of Sun Yat-sen,” Journal of Asian Studies, 39 (11 1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 There is, of course, some material. The account given by Linebarger, P. M. A., The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen (Westport, Connecticut, 1937)Google Scholar remains among the best available. Kindermann, G. K., Konfuzianismus, Sunyatsenismus und chinesischer Kommunismus (Breisgau, 1963)Google Scholar, provides a brief, competent treatment. Both works, unfortunately, deal with the relationship between the Confucian tradition and the thought of Sun Yat-sen in a fragmentary and unsystematic fashion. Curiously enough, much the same can be said of Chinese material that has found its way into European languages. The works of Tschi-tab, Tai, Die geistigen Grundlagen des Sun Yat-senismus (Berlin, 1931)Google Scholar, and Sao-fong, Wou, Sun Yat-sen: Sa vie et sa doctrine (Paris, 1929)Google Scholar, are very summary in their treatment of Sun's Confucianism.

3 Saggitarius, , The Strange Apotheosis of Sun Yat-sen (London, 1939), p. 188Google Scholar; Roy, M. N., Revolution and Counter-Revolution in China (Calcutta, 1946), p. 254.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., pp. 256, 257.

5 Cf. Yat-sen, Sun, San Min Chu I (Taipei, n.d.), pp. 41ff.Google Scholar

6 As cited, Sao-fong, Wou, Sun Yat-sen, p. 41.Google Scholar

7 Sun, , San Min Chu I, p. 38Google Scholar; and Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary (London, n.d.), p. 60Google Scholar. The original of this translation appears as “Sun Wên Hsüeh-shuo” [The teachings of Sun Wen] in Kuo-fu Ch'üan-chi (The Complete Works of Sun Yat-sen [Taipei, 1973], I:419–506Google Scholar. A more responsible translation in a European language appears as Sun, “Ueber die Schwierigkeit wissenschaftlicher Einsicht und ueber ihre Bedeutung,” in Wittvogel, K., Sun Yat-sen: Aufzeichnungen eines chinesischen Revolutionaers (Vienna, n.d.), pp. 227–312.Google Scholar

8 For a brief introduction to the thought of Wang Yang-ming, cf. Wing-tsit, Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, 1969), pp. 654–91Google Scholar. For an extended treatment of his early thought, see Wei-ming, Tu, Neo Confucian Thought in Action: Wang Yang-ming's Youth (1472–1509) (Berkeley, 1976)Google Scholar. For comparisons of the thought of Sun Yat-sen and that of Wang Yang-ming, see Jen Cho-hsuan's “Kuo-fu lun Yang-ming chih-hsing ho-i chih fen-hsi” [An analysis of Sun Yat-sen's discussion on Wang Yang-ming's unity of knowledge and practice]; Chou Shih-fu's “Yang-ming che-hsueh chih pi-chiao” [A comparison of the teachings of Sun Yat-sen and Wang Yang-ming[ in Yang-ming-hsueh lun-wen chi (A collection of essays on the study of Wang Yang-ming, 1972], pp. 71–80; 92–108; 132–147)Google Scholar. For reference to Sun's early preoccupation with Wang's thought, see Scalapino, Robert A. and Schiffrin, Harold, “Early Socialist Currents in the Chinese Revolutionary Movement” Journal of Asian Studies, 18 (05 1959), 323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 For a list of some of the books Sun read, cf. Wu, John C. H., Sun Yat-sen: The Man and His Ideas (Taipei, 1971), pp. 196ff.Google Scholar

10 Jung, Hwa Yol, “Wang Yang-ming's Doctrine of Innate Knowledge,” International Philosophical Quarterly, 5 (12 1965), 619–20.Google Scholar

11 Cf. Iki, H., “Wang Yang-ming's Doctrine of Innate Knowledge of the Good,” Philosophy East and West, 11 (04–07 1961), 32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Yang-ming, Wang, “Instructions for the Practical Life,” The Philosophy of Wang Yang-ming, trans. Henke, F. G. (London, 1916), pp. 53, 55ff.Google Scholar

13 Wang, , “Record of Discourses,”Google Scholaribid., pp. 143, 169, 178, 180, 181, 184; cf. “Instructions,” ibid., p. 81.

14 Sun, , Memoirs, p. 7.Google Scholar

15 Wang, , “Record of Discourses,” Philosophy of Wang, p. 81Google Scholar; cf. “Instructions,” ibid., pp. 93, 95ff., 98ff., 101, 104, 116ff., 122ff.

16 Chang, C., Wang Yang-ming, Idealist Philosopher of Sixteenth Century China (New York, 1962), p. 14.Google Scholar

17 Bergson, as cited in a text we know Sun read, Roy, E. Le, The New Philosophy of Henri Bergson (London, 1913), p. 32.Google Scholar

18 Cf. ibid., pp. 28, 32.

19 Wang, , “Reply to Letter from Ku Tung-ch'iao,” in Philosophy of Wang, p. 296.Google Scholar

20 Jung, , “Wang's Doctrine of Innate Knowledge,” pp. 633ff.Google Scholar; cf. Chang, C., “Wang Yang-ming's Philosophy,” Philosophy East and West, 5 (04 1955), 7ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Jung, , “Wang's Doctrine of Innate Knowledge,” pp. 614, 616.Google Scholar

22 Sun, , Memoirs, pp. 80ff, 85, 78ff.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., p. 91.

24 The Works of Mencius, in The Four Books, trans. J. Legge (Taipei, n.d.), bk. 7, chap. 5.

25 Sun, , Memoirs, p. 105.Google Scholar

26 Works of Mencius, bk. 4, part l, chap, l, para. 9.

27 Ibid., bk. 2, part l, chap. 2, para. 28; cf. bk. 6, part 1, chap. 7, para. 3; chap. 9, para. 3.

28 Ibid., bk. 3, part 1, chap. 3, para. 6.

29 Ibid., bk. 4, part 2, chap. 7.

30 Analects, in The Four Books, chap. 19; bk. 15, chap. 38; Works of Mencius, bk. 4, part 2, chap. 20, para. 2.

31 Analects, bk. 17, chaps 2 and 3.

32 Sun, , Memoirs, p. 112Google Scholar; cf. ibid., p. 116.

33 Sun, , San Min Chu I, p. 89.Google Scholar

34 Sun, , Memoirs, pp. 117, 119.Google Scholar

35 Sun, , “Chung-Kuo ying chien-shê kung-ho-kuo”Google Scholar [China should institute a republic], Speech of 13 August 1905, in Tokyo, in Kuo-fu Ch'üan-chi, II, p. 196.Google Scholar

36 Cf. Friedman, E., Backward Toward Revolution: The Chinese Revolutionary Party (Berkeley, 1974), chap. 1.Google Scholar

37 Cheng, Chü, Chü Chueh-sheng hsien-sheng (Complete Works of Chü Cheng [Taipei, 1954], pp. 153ff.)Google Scholar; cf. Hsüeh, Chün-tu, Huang Using and the Chinese Revolution (Stanford, 1961), pp. 165ff.Google Scholar

38 Wang, , “Record of Discourses,” p. 190.Google Scholar

39 Sun, , “Shang Li Hung-chang ch'ên chiu-kuo, ta-chi shu”Google Scholar [Memorial to Li Hung-chang on a plan to save the nation], in Kuo-fu Ch'üan-chi, III, pp. 1–11.Google Scholar

40 Cf. Ho, Fong, “Min-te,” Chia-yin (Tiger Monthly), 1 (06 1914).Google Scholar

41 Kung-wu, Lan, “P'ing chih-jih fu-ku chih miu,” Ta-chung-hua (Great China), 1, (01 1915)Google Scholar; Tse-tung, Chow, “The Anti-Confucian Movement in Early Republican China,” in The Confucian Persuasion (Stanford, 1960), pp. 290ff.Google Scholar

42 Sun, , Memoirs, p. 99ff.Google Scholar

43 Sun, , San Min Chu I, pp. 62ff.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., p. 176.

45 Ibid., p. 161.

46 Ibid., p. 26.

47 Analects, bk. 6, chap. 28, para. 2.

48 Cf. Wilhelm, Richard's “Introduction”Google Scholar to Tschi-tao, Tai, Sun-Yat-senismus, p. 8.Google Scholar