Birth and death: June 1893, June 2 1 (lunar calendar)-June1May 2, 964.
Times: Modern
Native place: ancestral home in Huangmei County, Hubei Province
Comments: Historians of philosophy and Buddhism.
biography
Juvenile court training
Tang Yongtong was born in Huangmei, Hubei Province, and his father Lin Tang was a scholar in the 16th year of Guangxu (1890). In the 23rd year of Guangxu, that is, the year before the Reform Movement of 1898 1897, he was sent to Weiyuan, Gansu, with great achievements. He left office the following year and set up professors in Lanzhou and Beijing successively. Pei, Zhang Xipeng and Xiang Jiu are all his disciples. After liberation, Zhang became a librarian of Gansu Provincial Museum of Literature and History, and was the last scholar in Weiyuan County in the late Qing Dynasty.
Tang Yongtong,1August 4, 893 (June 23 of the lunar calendar), was born in Weiyuan, Gansu. He went to school with his father, was enlightened by the school where his father taught, and received strict traditional education. Weiyuan people are not only friends of Tang general Anger, but also friends of his classmates. According to Tang's memory:
Tong Yang received court training and watched Part B early. My late father, Yu Sangong, taught people. Although he earnestly stood at the end of doing his own thing and inspired ignorance, he often said what he had said before to warn them. Children's pens are long and their minds are profound, so they love to read Neijing. Gu also likes to explore the context of ancient thought and the changes of schools. (Postscript of Tang Yongtong's History of Buddhism in Han, Wei, Southern and Northern Dynasties)
Accordingly, we can sort out four main clues of Tang Yongtong's childhood:
First, young people are trained by the court to stimulate ignorance. It shows that Tang Yongtong, who was born in an official family, received strict family education and began to shape his own psychological model of traditional culture.
Second, stand up for yourself seriously and warn you to do what you said before. Emphasis is placed on the inner moral cultivation of Confucianism, self-cultivation and classic enlightenment education of sages. This has an inherent causal relationship with his thought of worshipping Neo-Confucianism as a good medicine to save the nation when he was studying in Tsinghua, and also has an inevitable logical relationship with his modern cultural conservatism of "rejuvenating the country".
Third, read part B early, hoping to find the thread of ancient thought. It shows that he was educated in history since he was a child, and influenced by the "Six Classics are all history" of Qing Confucianism. "The wind of textual research since Gansu" laid an academic foundation for him to devote himself to historical research, especially the study of ideological history, in the tide of modern retro-ism.
Fourth, I love reading Neijing, and my heart is in profound knowledge. Attract him to devote his academic interest to Buddhism, metaphysics, Indian philosophy and other metaphysics and empty fields. After that, Tang was able to create outstanding and unparalleled achievements in the obscure field of Buddhism, all because of this.
Tsinghua school
Tang Yongtong was born in the era of the alternation of old and new, the intersection of China and the West, and the integration of new learning and old learning. 1895, Ouyang Zhonggu advocated the abolition of stereotyped writing. 1896, Zhang Zhidong invited students to study abroad. The Qing court ordered the local academies to be changed into high schools, middle schools and primary schools, and middle schools to study western learning. 1898, Liang Qichao wrote to the inspector group, demanding that Zhao Ming stop stereotyped writing and advocate the Six Classics. In the same year, stereotyped writing was abolished and the school flourished. Since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the old road of China intellectuals entering the imperial examination has become a historical relic. In the trend of this era, Tang Yongtong, who was still young, moved from Lanzhou to Beijing with his father's teaching library, but he could never stick to the tradition of being an official by studying Confucian classics, nor could he stick to the tradition of new scholars in the late Qing Dynasty seeking governance by studying Confucian classics and reforming the law.
Before the Revolution of 1911, Tang Yongtong left his father's school and went to Shuntian School in Beijing. Since then, he has received a new education and opened his mind to the new world. In the first year of the Republic of China, Tang was admitted to Tsinghua School, which was a year of high spirits, and Tsinghua undoubtedly became a hotbed of his new ideas and even the whole cultural concept. Tang 19 12 enrolled, 19 16 graduated. He studied in Tsinghua for five years, received the basic training of western culture, and was influenced by the rigorous, realistic and responsible school spirit of Yale University. This not only laid a solid linguistic and scientific foundation for him to study in the United States and obtain a master's degree in philosophy, but also laid a solid foundation for his academic thoughts and research methods in the future.
19 16, Tang Yongtong completed his studies in Tsinghua with excellent results, and earned official fees for studying in the United States. However, due to the failure to treat eye diseases, he finally stayed in school to teach Chinese and served as the editor-in-chief of Tsinghua Weekly, the school magazine. Studying in the United States at public expense and teaching Chinese at school shows that Tang is a spiritual leader in Tsinghua and his profound knowledge of Chinese studies. All these can be proved by a series of articles published in Tsinghua Weekly during his stay in Tsinghua. However, Tsinghua is not Yale, let alone Harvard. After all, Tang Yongtong was an intellectual in China who was influenced by traditional culture and forged his own cultural embryonic form. Although it is impossible for him to stick to the thinking mode of being an official in the imperial examination, it is impossible to change the profound accumulation of national culture in his mind. At this time, his hard-working knowledge of western culture can only be a supplement and amendment to the shortcomings of Chinese studies. In other words, at this time, the road he took basically did not break through the barriers of Chinese style and western use. Even after that, he never tried to break away from tradition like Hu Shi, a liberal, and Chen Xu, a radical, but made his idea of realizing the transformation of traditional culture more complete and dense.
From a series of articles published by Tang in Tsinghua, we can see that there are introductions and elucidations of western cultures such as philosophy and biology, and also the concept of social evolution that intellectuals talked about at that time, but what is more remarkable is the academic thought of saving the country by Neo-Confucianism. On the basis of the traditional education of "inheriting his father's business", he began to form a conservative cultural view of "rejuvenating the country and integrating new knowledge". Of course, this is also in line with the trend of the times when the quintessence of Chinese culture is used to stimulate species and enhance national morality.
When young people in the Tang Dynasty first entered Beijing, they also held a contemptuous attitude towards Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties. Especially hostile to Mr. Neo-Confucianism, unwilling to associate with him. However, he soon pinned his hopes of "self-reliance and self-reliance" and "saving the nation for survival" on the theory of "whipping internal affairs", that is, Neo-Confucianism. First, I wrote a long article about Neo-Confucianism, which was published in Tsinghua Weekly, expounding Wang and Zhu, and showing the social concept of revitalizing Chinese studies and enhancing the spirit of saving the nation from extinction-the spirit of the weak. In addition, he also published many papers in Tsinghua Weekly, such as The Role of Theory, The New Immortality Theory, Plant Psychology, Happiness and Pain, Talking about Help, Talking about Food and Clothing, and a factual report of a similar novel genre-Lonely Crying, and four reviews of foreign literary works, which made great efforts to understand western culture. This paper directly expresses all his thoughts of advocating Zhu Cheng's Neo-Confucianism, and shows his conservative tendency of attaching importance to oriental spiritual civilization and inner truth cultivation, which is the first stage of the development and change of his cultural concept.
The other side of the ocean
Wu Mi, Mei Guangdi, Hu Xiansu, Tang Yongtong's classmates in Tsinghua, will be the core and main leaders of the Xue Heng School in the future. They have successively studied in the United States and obtained master's degrees on the other side of the ocean. Wu Mi, in particular, graduated in the same year as Tang Yongtong and stayed in Tsinghua at the same time. Tang is a Chinese teacher and editor-in-chief of Tsinghua Weekly, and Wu is a translator in the case office. 19 17 years spent studying in the United States with boxer indemnity. It was from this year that Tang Yongtong began to receive real western cultural education.
Tang Yongtong studied at Harvard for two years, and entered Harvard Research Institute from 65438 to 0920, totally immersed in the sea of quiet philosophical thinking. This discipline involves western philosophy and Indian philosophy. As analyzed by Professor Le Dai Yun, Mei Guangdi, Miwu and Hu Xiansu, who originally studied at Northwestern University, University of Virginia and University of Berkeley in California, successively transferred the reputation of Professor Owen Babbitt to Harvard and took Babbitt as their teacher. Babbitt didn't shape their thoughts, but they have formed the embryonic form of their own thoughts, and gained * * * knowledge with white new humanism, thus * *. Tang Yongtong was also attracted by Bai's new humanism, systematically accepted Bai's humanistic thought of "compassion plus choice" based on personal moral perfection, and was influenced by Bai's emphasis on Buddhist research. He also managed Sanskrit and Pali, which were necessary for the study of Buddhist history. During the graduate school, Tang studied hard and learned everything. Looking at the present, he achieved excellent results. I finished my studies ahead of schedule, and 1922 got a master's degree in philosophy. He became friends with Tsinghua and Harvard, and later became the first generation of scholars in China who systematically received modern scientific training and formally instilled western cultural knowledge. He, Wu Mi and Chen Yinque are called "Harvard Three Masters", which also comes from this.
A new theory of the old country
1922, Tang Yongtong returned to his hometown. At that time, the dispute between old and new cultures, Chinese and western cultures, problems and ism, science and metaphysics was deepening, and the academic circles were immersed in the textual research of ancient history to find or create historical basis for their own views. Liang Shuming's "Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophy" was published at the end of last year, which set off a debate on how to rebuild China's culture. Xue Heng magazine, founded by Xue Heng School, was launched this year 1 month. In view of the fact that the New Culture Movement only cares about the survival of political entities and ignores the continuation of traditional culture, they attempt to completely replace the disadvantages of China's traditional bias with western modern culture, with the academic purpose of "doing research, seeking truth, rejuvenating the country, integrating new knowledge, being righteous and righteous, being impartial and not drifting with the tide", and launch a fierce debate with the New Culture Movement represented by Hu Shi. In July of the same year, Ouyang Buqun established the Zhina Inner Courtyard on the basis of Jinling scriptures, which contributed to the prosperity of modern Buddhism.
It is in this academic atmosphere that Tang Yongtong not only put on the hat of a master, but also boarded the stage of modern academic circles in China and the forum of new education in China with the help of western culture, specifically the sharp weapon of Babbitt's new humanism, and with his profound and solid foundation of Buddhist research. At the invitation of Mei Guangdi and Wu Mi, he first taught at Southeast University in Nanjing, and then served as a professor and head of the Department of Philosophy at Nankai University in Tianjin and Nanjing Central University (formerly Southeast University) for about nine years.
As far as we know, there are only two articles written directly by Tang Yongtong on the discussion of Chinese and Western cultures. One is "Cultural Conflict and Reconciliation" published in the second issue of Volume I of Academic Quarterly in June 1943. The other is the full-text copy of the headline of Xue Heng 12, which was published in China New Newspaper and published in 1922 and 65438+February. If the subsequent cultural conflict and reconciliation, under the guidance of its humanism, systematically expounded the gradual change theory of national culture from the perspective of cultural anthropology, then the cultural research on approaching people is based on the fallacy in the cultural debate between China and the West at that time.
It can be said that Tang's academic path is composed of lectures, writings and translation:
First, teach the history of Buddhism in China in the university forum;
Secondly, translate and introduce western philosophy and Indian philosophy;
Thirdly, I began to write the history of Buddhism in China.
Tang Yongtong, who returned from his study tour, immediately put his humanistic thoughts into academic practice. He not only introduced western learning into the field of old learning, but also promoted the modern transformation of traditional culture. More importantly, he blocked the tradition with western learning, preserved China culture and carried forward the national spirit. If Tsinghua is the cradle of Tang Wenhua's ideas, Harvard is a boat to help him grow up, and Tang Yongtong, who has systematically expressed his humanistic cultural ideas after returning to China, is undoubtedly a fish leaping over the dragon gate and fighting in the dark.
To sum up, Mr. Wang was trained by the imperial court, received systematic traditional education, and was implanted with the feelings of going to the sages and worrying about the country and the people. The new education he received in Tsinghua after the age of 20 not only did not break away from tradition, but strengthened his feelings for traditional culture. Facing the challenge of modern western civilization, he tried to protect the tradition with western learning, and gradually formed an anti-introspection and firm-minded Neo-Confucianism thought of saving the country. It is this thought that made him and his comrades choose Babbitt, a master of modern conservatism and a new humanist. In the past five years, the influence of foreign culture has found an old friend from another country for his culture to save the country. Confucian moral and ethical philosophy and Babbitt's humanism of "sympathy plus choice" have been recognized and purified at the cultural level, and become a theory of "rejuvenating the country and integrating new knowledge". After returning to China for more than 20 years, this theory has gradually systematized into a cultural integration system, a research method of comprehensive argumentation, fact separation, traditional textual research and scientific comparison. At the same time, influenced by Babbitt and Moore, he chose Buddhism in China as the research object, studied Sanskrit and Pali assiduously, and put forward the idea of Buddhist history with sympathy, understanding and extensive search, which created unprecedented achievements in the study of Buddhist history in China.
He has a thorough understanding of tradition, but he doesn't have a conservative scholar-bureaucrat. He is an American student who is regarded as one of the three outstanding students of Harvard, but he doesn't show any fashionable scholar style. Therefore, in the tide of the debate between China and the West, we are harmonious. We don't regard westerners as ancestors to write fashionable political and social ideological articles, nor do we regard ourselves as the best, and regard tradition as a single system that cannot be changed. He expounded his sudden emergence from the concept of gain and loss in cultural transformation with eloquent historical facts, and at the same time showed his "independent" personality and academic thought. The 1920s-40s was the era of great academic changes in China and the golden age of Tang Yongtong's academic thoughts.