晚清的「生元思想」及其非啟蒙傾向－－以康有為與譚嗣同為中心 = Philosophy of the Source of Life and its Non-Enlightenment Tendency in Late Qing China: Focusing on Kang Youwei and Tan Sitong

While facing the unprecedented crisis of China's political and cultural system, late Qing Chinese literati, especially some leading intellectuals among them, began to devote themselves to the study of the highest cosmo- anthropological and socio-political principles of the world so as to find "The Way" for China. The crisis and challenges were so deep, that their study, by inheriting Chinese tradition, developed into a kind of "philosophy of the source of life," and paid utmost attention to the original life force and fundamental meaning of life, nation, culture, and universe. In doing so, they tended to abandon everything that was trivial or unnecessary and concentrated on the most fundamental part of Chinese culture, and used it to absorb the newly introduced Western world worldview─the evolutional, scientific, materialistic, elements-oriented, dynamic, liberal, emancipated, democratic, egalitarian, and philanthropistic new thought, so as to meet the challenge of modernity. This also meant that they tried to return to "the root" of traditional culture so as to emancipate and revive the vigor and strength of Chinese people and culture.
The present article delineates the basic characteristics of this philosophy by focusing on two leading Chinese intellectuals: Kang Youwei, and Tan Sitong. Both of them, influenced by both Chinese and Western traditions, accentuated a "philosophical" but assertive account of "the ultimate substance" and believed that they could grasp the highest principles of the universe and cope with everything by understanding the ultimate substance, or the source of life. The real-world socio-political problems were so severe and their quest for emancipating people's vitality so urgent, their philosophy of the source of life was progressive and came to have a highly anti-traditional and iconoclastic character. It criticized any formal, orderly, individualized, and rationalized form of existence, and created a deep non-Enlightenment and even anti-modernity tendency. It brought with it great reformist and revolutionary marvels, but also made the process of modernization somehow even more difficult.