Background
Sitong Tan was born in 1865 in Liuyang, Hunan Province, China. He was a native of Liuyang, Hunan, and his father was governor of Hubei. He lost his mother when he was twelve years old, and his father's concubine mistreated him.
(English summary: In his study of radical Chinese reformer...)
English summary: In his study of radical Chinese reformer Tan Sitong (1865-1898), Ingo Schaefer uniquely demonstrates to what extent his writings reflect the overall social transformation process during the late Qing period. They are characterized by a twofold movement, taking place on the one hand in the deconstruction and reconstruction of autochthonous political and philosophical concepts (eg. Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, Mohism) and on the other - as part of this process - in the reception and processing of political and philosophical concepts of 'Western' bourgeois discourse. In this way, the different positions presented in Tan Sitong's writings are a unique testimony to the contradictory political-philosophical discourse taking place in China on the threshold of modernity. German description: Als der radikale chinesische Reformer Tan Sitong (1865-1898) im Alter von 33 Jahren auf Geheiss der Kaiserinwitwe Cixi unter dem Schwert des Scharfrichters starb, hinterliess er ein Konvolut von Texten, in denen er unterschiedliche, widerspruchliche Positionen vertritt. Wie lassen sich diese unterschiedlichen extremen Positionen miteinander vereinbaren? Welche Strukturen ermoglichen den Ubergang vom sino-zentrischen zum universalistischen Diskurs, vom Diskurs der Segregation und Ungleichheit zum Diskurs der Einheit und Gleichheit, vom politisch Konservativ-Reaktionaren zum politisch Progressiv-Revolutionaren? Ingo Schafer zeigt in seiner Studie wie die Texte Tan Sitongs auf einzigartige Weise den gesamtgesellschaftlichen Transformationsprozess der spaten Qing-Zeit reflektieren. Sie sind gekennzeichnet durch eine doppelte Bewegung, die sich zum einen in der Dekonstruktion und Neu-Montage autochthoner politischer und philosophischer Ideen (z.B. des Konfuzianismus, Buddhismus, Daoismus, Mohismus) vollzieht und zum anderen - in diesen Prozess eingebunden - in der Rezeption und Bearbeitung politischer und philosophischer Ideen des "westlichen" burgerlichen Diskurses. So legen die unterschiedlichen Positionen in Tan Sitongs Schriften ein einmaliges Zeugnis ab von dem widerspruchlichen politisch-philosophischen Diskurs Chinas an der Schwelle zur Moderne.
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Sitong Tan was born in 1865 in Liuyang, Hunan Province, China. He was a native of Liuyang, Hunan, and his father was governor of Hubei. He lost his mother when he was twelve years old, and his father's concubine mistreated him.
With an unhappy childhood, he spent his time studying. Educated in conventional teachings, Tan was fond of reading and demonstrated the potential to become an essayist. Originally, he shared the Sinocentric views of his fellow people. At the age of twenty-five, he wrote the essay “Zhi yan”(“A Treatise on Politics”) and believed that the Chinese were superior to other surrounding u barbarians. For a few years, he worked at the office of the Xinjiang provincial governor.
Nevertheless, in the 1890s he changed his ideas after his devotion to “Western learning.” The change came with his acquaintance with the “for-eign affairs specialists” of his father’s senior colleague Governor General Zhang Zhidong. With the Chinese defeat in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), Tan felt deeply the miseries of his country. He compared the Chinese and Western civilizations, and advocated reform through borrowing from the West. In 1896, he was an expectant prefect in Nanjing. In the same year,Tan met Liang Qichao and became closely acquainted with him. Liang was a political activist of the time, and later proved to be an outstanding intellectual. The meeting was a remarkable experience for Tan Sitong. From 1896 to 1897, Tan wrote Ren xue (A Study of Benevolence), which earned him a place in modern Chinese philosophy. He combined the teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Christianity with his own understanding of Western science. He aimed to break away from traditionalism and the blind worship of the past, and to provide solutions to China's problems.
Between 1897 and 1898, both Tan Sitong and Liang Qichao were in Hunan. Tan returned to Hunan province to negotiate a mining project with the government officials. As for Liang,he took up the post of chief lecturer at the newly established Shiwu Xuetang (College of Current Affairs) in Changsha,the capital city of Hunan. Tan worked as Liang’s assistant. For a while, the two men participated in the reform movement of the provincial governor and the local gentry. During this time,new schools, societies and publications appeared in Hunan.
Tan edited and published newspapers. He also chaired Nanxuehui (Southern Society) to promote modern learning. Nanxuehui started in 1898, with its headquarters in Changsha and its branches over the Hunan province. Nanxuehui provided opportunities for Tan to make his public speeches and its many lectures included topics on politics, culture, education, geography, astronomy, and so on.
Tan Sitong had proclaimed himself student of Kang Youwei, and had been closely associated with Kang’s group of political activists. Outraged at the Chinese defeat in the Sino-Japanese War and the resulting Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao presented a 10,000 word memorial to the Qing court, and asked for immediate institutional reform. The event became known as ugongche shangshun (wtaking public transportation and presenting a memorial”),as Kang secured the signatures of hundreds of provincial graduates who traveled to Beijing by public transportation. After his eighth memorial in 1898, Kang had the opportunity to elaborate his views to Emperor Guangxu. Subsequently, the emperor placed Kang’s group in high positions. Liang Qichao secured a sixth-rank position and Tan together with three other people became fourth-rank secretaries in the Grand Council.
From June 11 to September 20, 1898, Emperor Guangxu and Kang Youwei embarked on their ambitious reform program known as the ''Hundred Day Reform.w Of the 40 to 50 reform decrees issued during this time, they included the abolition of the eight-legged essay in civil service examinations, the dosing down of sinecure and unnecessary offices,and the establishment of the Imperial University at Beijing.
The reform movement soon developed into a power struggle between Emperor Guangxu and the Empress Dowager Cixi. Rumors spread that the Empress Dowager and her supporters were about to stage a coup d'etat to remove Guangxu. Sensing the urgency of the situation, Kang's group sent Tan Sitong to Yuan Shikai, and urged the latter to deflect and to help kill Cixi. The plot never materialized, and Guangxu was under house arrest. Tan Sitong could have fled (like Kang and Liang), but he chose to die, to show that without bloodshed the hope for a new country would be in vain.
(English summary: In his study of radical Chinese reformer...)
Tan adapted Confucian thought to modern circumstances. Under the influence of Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao he progressed from efforts to modernize education to more comprehensive reformist activities. In 1898 he was appointed one of four Secretaries to the Grand Council overseeing reforms for the Emperor.
With the empress dowager's coup Tan was arrested and executed. He is the most prominent martyr of the Hundred Days Reform.
Tan’s major work. Philosophy of Humanity (1958), focused on the central Confucian virtue of ren and was strongly influenced by the utopian thought of Kang Youwei.
After previously seeing qi or material principle as metaphysically basic. Tan came to regard ren as functionally identified with ether, the imperceivable, universal and indestructable element basic to all reality. He thus tried to bring together Confucian thought and a scientific account of the natural world.
His identification of moral and natural reality led to the claim that ren should be realized not only for human wellbeing, but also for the welfare of the universe. His vision was one of Confucian great unity and Moist universal love, abolishing all social divisions of class, sex and nation. He showed hostility to unreformed Confucian moral practices, and attempted to relate his views to Buddhism and Christianity as well as to Confucian tradition.
His understanding of Western science and thought was limited and his syncretism often clumsy, but his attempt to provide an intellectual basis for modernizing reform within the Confucian tradition had influence in this century, especially in view of his martyrdom.
The neo-Confucian materialists Zhang Zai (eleventh century) and Wang Fuzhi (seventeenth century) and the neoConfucian idealists Lu Xiangshan (twelfth century) and Wang Yangming (early sixteenth century). Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Confucian, Buddhist and Christian thinkers, and Western science.