Mou Zongsan

Agora

Mou Zongsan

1909–1995

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Against Kant, moral experience gives us direct insight into our own true self – so Confucian ethics can ground a whole metaphysics.

Placement

East Asian Philosophy · East Asia · Metaphysics, Ethics, Epistemology

Leading New Confucian and translator of Kant’s three Critiques: against Kant, Confucian moral experience grants humans an “intellectual intuition” of the moral self.

Key ideas

Intellectual intuition
Moral metaphysics
Two-level mind

Teachers: Xiong Shili

Students: Tu Weiming

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Influence

Influenced by 4

Mengzi (Mencius)

influenced by
Mou Zongsan took Mencius’ original mind as the moral mind that is itself creative reality and opened On the Highest Good (1985) by commenting on the Mencius. Mou Zongsan, Xinti yu xingti (1968–69); Yuanshan lun (1985); IEP “Mou Zongsan”
Evidence: AI draft
Mengzi (Mencius) › c. 372–289 BCE
Wang Yangming

influenced by
Mou Zongsan placed Wang Yangming’s innate knowing in the main line of Confucian moral metaphysics, from Mencius through Lu Jiuyuan (From Lu Xiangshan to Liu Jishan, 1979). Mou Zongsan, Cong Lu Xiangshan dao Liu Jishan (1979); Xinti yu xingti (1968–69); IEP “Mou Zongsan”
Evidence: AI draft
Wang Yangming › 1472–1529
Immanuel Kant

influenced by
Mou Zongsan, who translated Kant’s three Critiques, kept Kant’s framework but argued that moral experience grants humans intellectual intuition (Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy, 1971). Mou Zongsan, Zhi de zhijue yu Zhongguo zhexue (1971); Xianxiang yu wu zishen (1975); IEP “Mou Zongsan”
Evidence: AI draft
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Xiong Shili studied with

studied with
Mou met Xiong in 1932 as a student at Peking University and became his disciple; Xiong’s metaphysics of the original mind shaped his later New Confucian philosophy. Mou Zongsan, Wushi zishu (Autobiography at Fifty, 1989); N. S. Chan, The Thought of Mou Zongsan (2011)
Evidence: AI draft
Xiong Shili › 1885–1968

Influenced 1

Tu Weiming taught

taught
Tu studied Chinese literature at Tunghai University in Taiwan (BA 1961), where he studied directly with Mou and with Xu Fuguan; these studies led to a Harvard-Yenching scholarship. IEP “Tu Weiming”
Evidence: AI draft
Tu Weiming › b. 1940

Criticism

Criticizes 2

Zhu Xi

criticised
Mou Zongsan judged that Zhu Xi made a side branch the main line: his principle merely exists and is inactive, unlike Mencius’ moral mind (Xinti yu xingti). Mou Zongsan, Xinti yu xingti (1968–69); N. S. Chan, The Thought of Mou Zongsan, 2011
Evidence: AI draft
Zhu Xi › 1130–1200
Martin Heidegger

criticised
In Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy (1971) Mou credited Heidegger’s Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics with opening Kant to him, but objected that Heidegger’s stress on human finitude leaves no room for the infinite, self-legislating moral mind that Confucianism ascribes to human beings. Mou Zongsan, Zhi de zhijue yu Zhongguo zhexue (1971); S. Billioud, “Mou Zongsan’s Problem with the Heideggerian Interpretation of Kant”, Journal of Chinese Philosophy 33 (2006)
Evidence: AI draft
Martin Heidegger › 1889–1976

Works

1958A Manifesto on Chinese Culture to the World
Drafted by Tang Junyi and signed with Mou Zongsan, Xu Fuguan and Zhang Junmai: Chinese culture is not a dead object for sinology but a living tradition whose core is the learning of mind and nature; it should take up science and democracy.
1971Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy
Kant reserved intellectual intuition for God; Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist traditions, Mou argues, affirm it for human beings.

Position

Mou Zongsan read Confucianism through Kant and Kant through Confucianism. Kant denied finite humans intellectual intuition; Mou argued that in moral experience – Mencius’ original mind, Wang Yangming’s innate knowing – an infinite mind is present, so a “moral metaphysics” is possible where Kant allowed only a metaphysics of morals. The one mind opens two levels: phenomena, known by science, and things in themselves, the realm of value. Zhu Xi, who sought principle outside the mind, he judged a side branch. To ground democracy and science, innate knowing must “negate itself” – a thesis critics find obscure. An anti-communist in exile, he shaped New Confucians like Tu Weiming.

Life & context

Mou Zongsan was born in 1909 in Qixia (Shandong) into a farming family. At Peking University he became a disciple of the New Confucian Xiong Shili and first worked on logic, Russell and Whitehead. In 1949 he left for Taiwan; in 1958 he co-signed the New Confucian manifesto on Chinese culture, and from 1960 he taught in Hong Kong. He translated Kant’s three Critiques and died in Taipei in 1995.