《章太炎思想研究》兩種合評

A Combined Review of Two studies in the Thoughts of Chang T'ai-yen

王煜(Wong Yuk)

《中國文化研究所學報》 18卷 (1987/01) Pp. 253-263

https://doi.org/10.29708/JCS.CUHK.198701_18.0012

並列摘要

Fifty years after Chang's death, two books were already published to commemorate this eminent scholar-philosopher. Chiang I-hua's book was history-oriented, particularly in tracing Chang's academic origin back to his great grandfather, who established a college, and his grandfather, who struggled to become a magnanimous doctor, and his father, who resigned his Honan office to take up the deanship of his native prefecture college. With abundant material, Chiang argued that Chang surpassed K'ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao in scientific reliability. It is tremendously enlightening to read Chiang's comparison between Kant and the Buddhist Mere-Ideation School. Regrettably Chiang failed to criticize Chang's mistakes in abusing Buddhist psychologism to interpret Confucianism and Taoism, especially in misunderstanding Chuang Tzu's transcendental mind to be animal instinct and empirical consciousness. I appreciate Chiang's observation that Chang used Indian philosophies to construct his own system. But undeniably, the last chapter is too leftist. Tang Wen-ch'uan and Lo Fu-hui wrote a philosophy-oriented book with the same title. They managed to stratify Chang's thought into Classics learning, Western learning, Buddhism, Lao-Chuang, and Confucianism. Concerning Chang's anarchism and nihilism, they could not indicate the nominalist background of individualism and the realist foundation of collectivism. Both books neglected Chang's ignorance of Hegel's Cunning of Reason and ignored Chang's degradation of Li Kuang-ti's personality. As forerunners in comparative philosophy, Yen Fu, Kang-Liang and Chang were later by nine centuries than the Hsin Chiang (Sinkiang) moslems who syncretized Greek, Arabic, Persian, Indian, and Chinese religions and ethics to author Blessing, Happiness and Wisdom in Northern Sung Dynasty.