Page 173 - 2022(1) International Confusion Studies

166 C. Bei

Moreover, the difference between textology and Neo Confucianism of the Song
and Ming dynasties does not lie merely in specific points of view, but in their
disparate paradigms of research. If Neo Confucianism was a constructive philos-
ophy, that is, aiming to establish a unitary system of truth. The textology of the
Qing would be a deconstructive philosophy, which critically questions previous
understanding of philosophy and aims to establish a new philosophical system by
means of textual research and language. The paradigmatic shift means more than
it appears. As Elman points out: “When critique prevails as the core of the new
philosophy, textology would no longer accept a uniform or conflated interpreta-
tion of classical learning. In Michel Foucault’s terms, ‘It desacralizes language’”
(Elman, 2010, p. 111).
Elman finds that the textual research scholars in the Qing Dynasty painstak-
ingly employed language to deconstruct the Neo Confucian orthodoxy by means of
language criticism until they completely subverted the official academic discourse
and ideology that had been established since the Ming Dynasty. By tracing the
variation of the modes of narrative about the Duke of Zhou assisting young King
Cheng, Elman has gained insight into the characteristics of Ming scholarship, on
which he commented, “Universal ‘truth’ legitimated by the state in the form of the
hegemony of Cheng–Zhu Confucian discourse in late imperial official and
educational life drew the Classics and Four Books into its own conservative
agenda, rather than following, for example, the more reformist agendas of earlier
Northern Song or Former Han Confucians ” (Elman, 2010, p. 40). It was precisely an
ideological construction for cementing their political legitimacy by virtue of a
universally accepted doctrine that motivated the imperial governments of the Ming
and Qing to sanction philosophical theories of Song scholars as the state’s
orthodox ideology. “In contrast, evidential scholarship of the Qing Dynasty opted
for a critique paradigm of study, which means that at this level of analysis, Dai
Zhen’s critique, which was driven home by Ruan Yuan (阮元 1764–1849) and Jiao
Xun (焦循 1763–1820), certainly was liberating’ (Elman, 2010, p. 40).”
Textual research seems to be a drudgery of exploring ancient knowledge, but it
was destined to end in unraveling the imperial state ideology thanks to its modality
of conception, i.e., a preference for seeking solid facts of history at the sacrifice of
metaphysical abstraction.
If further reflection is given to such a mode of thinking for factual accuracy and
objectivity, it will turn out to be miraculously akin to the demands of modern
science. Elman has proven this hypothesis by investigating the studies of textual
research scholars in the fields of mathematics and astronomy. In his article
“Western Learning and Evidential Research in the 18th Century” (18 世纪的西学与
考证学), Elman suggests that a critical mode of thinking enabled evidential
scholars to see great value in the natural sciences, and that they not only embraced