1. Zhang Yiwu, "Shide weiji yu zhishi fenzi de weiji" (The crisis of poetry and the crisis of intellectuals), Dushu 5 (1989), 77-82.

2. Liang Zhiping, "Chuantong wenhua de gengxin yu zaisheng" (The renewals and rebirth of traditional culture), Dushu 3 (1989), 13.

3. On scientific rationality, see Jin Guantao, Wode zhexue tansuo (My inquiry into philosophy)(Taibei: Fengyun shidai chubangongsi, 1989), 22.

4. Li Tuo was the main propagator of the notion of the "Mao Style" as early as in 1989. See his discussion of the notion in Li Tuo, Zhang Ling, and Wang Bin, "Yuyan de fanpan: Jinliangnian xiaoshuo xianxiang" (The rebellion of language: The trends of the last two years' fiction), Wenyi yanjiu 2 (1989), 79-80. After Li came to the States, he continued to sharpen his arguments on the Mao Style. He is now working on a manuscript on "Mao Style and Its Political Institutionalization." See note 19 in chapter four.

5. See Chen Lai, "Fulu: Sixiang chulu de sandongxiang" (Appendix: The three orientations in the outlets of thought), in Zhongguo dangdai wenhua yishi (Cultural consciousness of contemporary China), ed. Gan Yang (Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian, 1989), 581-87. Also see Chen Kuide, "Wenhua re: Beijing sichao ji liangzhong quingxiang" (Culture fever: Background, schools of thought, and two kinds of tendencies), in Zhongguo dalu dangdai wenhua bianqian , 1978-1989 (Cultural transformations of contemporary mainland China, 1978-1989), ed. Chen Kuide (Taibei: Guiguan tushu gufen youxian gongsi, 1991), 37-61.

6. The group of Culture: China and the World published a journal under the same name, printed by the Sanlian Bookstore in Beijing. It also published three subseries: a series in "The Library of Modern Western Academic Learning," another one in "The Library of New Knowledge," and the third one in "The Studies of the Humanities."

7. Lin Nan, "Local Market Socialism: Rural Reform in China" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Pitts-burgh, Pa., August 1992, and at the conference "Great Transformation in South China and Taiwan," Cornell University, October 1992).

8. Han Shi, ed., Bashi niandai: Gaibian Zhongguo de sanshisanben shu (The 1980s: The thirty-three books that changed China)(Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu youxian gongsi, 1992), 13-14.

9. Ibid., quoting the concluding speech given by the head of Chinese People's Bank Chen Muhua in an international symposium on "China Faces Future" held on May 8, 1985.

10. Brugger and Kelly, Chinese Marxism , 43. Based on their analysis of an article written by Jia Xinmin (a contributor to the founding issue of the journal published by the "Marching Toward the Future" group), Brugger and Kelly implied that although Chinese futurology is "Marxist," it has "lost much of its recognizable Chinese flavor of optimism and triumphalism" (44).

11. Mao Zedong, "Sixty Points on Working Methods," in Mao Papers , ed. Jerome Ch'en (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), 64.

12. Wang Lin, "Shi juhao haishi wenhao?" (Was it a period or a question mark?), Dushu 5 (1989), 135.

13. In Li Tuo's talk "Literature as Social Practice in Contemporary China," given at the Asian/Pacific Studies Institute of Duke University on March 1, 1993, he discusses the significance of pizi as a cluster of "elements" that emerged with the deep penetration of urban reform into the cities during the late 1980s.

14. On residual modernity, see Tang Xiaobing, "Residual Modernism: Narrative of the Self in Contemporary Chinese Fiction," Modern Chinese Literature 7, no. 1 (1993), 7-31. On Chinese postmodernism, see Tang's "The Function of New Theory: What Does It Mean to Talk About Post-Modernism in China?" Public Culture 4, no. 1 (1991), 89-108. Tang was one of the critics in the early 1990s who wrote about "Chinese postmodernism." See my critique of the pseudoproposition of Chinese postmodernism in chapter six.

15. Gan Yang has been promoting the concept of the "alternative modern" since 1992, if not earlier. He stresses the importance of exploring the mechanism operating in rural Chinese industries. He argues that rural China ( xiangtu Zhongguo ) illustrates the unique pattern of "development without privatization," an economic law that contradicts the rationale of modernity understood solely in Western terms. See Gan Yang, "Wenhua Zhongguo yu xiangtu Zhongguo: Houlengzhan shidai de Zhongguo qianjing jiqi wenhua" (Cultural China and rural China: The prospects and culture of post-Cold-War China)(paper presented at the conference "Cultural China: Interpretations and Communications," Harvard University, September 3, 1992). In his edited volume China after 1989: An Alternative to Shock Therapy (New York: Oxford University Press, in press), he devotes a chapter to ''The Chinese Alternative to Privatization.'' In his unpublished proposal for the manuscript, he pinpoints the "uniqueness of the Chinese experience, expecially in comparison with its counterparts in Eastern Europe and the USSR."

16. Tu Weiming spoke of the monolithic versus pluralistic modernity that distinguished the May Fourth and contemporary Chinese experiment with the notion of modernity. See his Ruxue disanqi fazhan de qianjing wenti: Dalu jiangxue, wennan he taolun (Questions regarding the prospects of developing the third-stage Confucianism: Lectures, inquiries, and discussions during my trips to mainland China)(Taibei: Lianjing chuban shiye gongsi, 1989), 13.

17. Gan Yang, "Bashi niandai wenhua taolun de jige wenti" (Several questions about the Cultural Discussion of the 1980s), in Women zai chuangzao chuantong (We are creating tradition) (Taibei: Lianjing chuban shiye gongsi, 1989), 28.

18. See Chen Kuide, "Wenhua re," 50, and Su Xiaokang, "Dangdai Zhongguo de wenhua jinzhang" (The cultural tensions of contemporary China), in Zhongguo dalu dangdai wenhua bianqian , 1978-1989, 24-25.

19. Li Zhongming, "Cong fanziyouhua douzheng dao Lei Feng yangban (11)" (From the antiliberalism purge to the model of Lei Feng: Part 2), Zhongyang ribao , 13 March 1987, overseas edition, 2, based on a report in the Hong Kong political journal Zhengming (Contending) 3 (1987).

20. For a detailed discussion of the problematic enlightenment program propagated in the TV series, see chapter three, " Heshang and the Paradoxes of the Chinese Enlightenment." A slightly different version of the chapter was published in Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 23, no. 3 (1991), 23-33.

21. Yan Bofei, "Paoqi wutuobang: Du Hengtingdun Bianhua shehui zhong de zhengzhi zhixu " (Let go of utopia: Reading Huntington's "Political order in changing societies"), Dushu 2 (1989), 10.

22. Jin, Wode zhexue tansuo , 11-14.

23. Ibid., 51-52.

24. Ibid., 53 and 37.

25. Fu Weixun faulted Jin, whom he considered still a believer in scientific Marxism, for not abandoning Marxism completely. See Fu Weixun, "Zhongguo sixiangjie de Shate yu Bowa" (Sartre and de Beauvoir in China's intellectual arena), in Jin Guantao and Liu Qingfeng, Xingsheng yu weiji: Lun Zhongguo fengjian shehui de chaowending jiegou (Prosperity and crisis: On the ultrastability of Chinese feudal society) (Taibei: Fengyun shidai chuban gongsi, 1989), 26-27. Brugger and Kelly are more thoughtful in their effort to label Jin. They ascribe Jin's position to scientific Marxism and humanist Marxism respectively. According to them, Jin was able to "make a commitment to scientific rationality through . . . commitment to Marxism" ( Chinese Marxism , 7, emphasis in the original). They relegate Jin (together with Wang Ruoshui) to the camp of Marxist humanists who are aware of the need to "hold the line for a renewed Marxism'' against the "invasive forces of the irrational" (158).

26. Brugger and Kelly, Chinese Marxism , 61.

27. Jin and Liu, Xingsheng yu weiji , 8-13 and 44-51.

28. Ibid., 51-55.

29. Tu Weiming, "Dalu ruxue xindongxiang de hanyi" (The implications of the new development of mainland Confucianism), Zhongguo luntan 27, no. 7 (1989), 31.

30. One of the most frequently cited articles was written by Jin Guantao, Liu Qingfeng, and Fan Hongye, "Wenhua beijing yu kexue jishu jiegou yanbian" (Cultural background and the structural change of science and technology), in Kexue chuantong yu wenhua: Zhongguo jindai kexue luohou de yuanyin (Scientific tradition and culture: Reasons why modern Chinese science lagged behind), ed. the editorial board from Ziran bianzhengfa tongxun of the Academy of the Natural Sciences (Shannxi: Kexue jishu chubanshe, 1983).

31. Jin Guantao and Liu Qingfeng, "Kexue: Wenhua yanjiu zhong beihulue de zhuti" (Science: The neglected thesis of cultural studies), in Jin and Liu, Xingsheng yu weiji , 422.

32. Ibid., 428. Emphasis is mine.

33. Jürgen Habermas, "The Undermining of Western Rationalism through the Critique of Metaphysics: Martin Heidegger," in The Philosophical Discourse , 113.

34. Yu Wujin, "Lun dangdai Zhongguo wenhua de jizhong beilun" (On some contradictory theses regarding contemporary Chinese culture), Renmin ribao , 23 August 1988, overseas edition.

35. Jin, Wode zhexue tansuo , 53.

36. Li Zehou, Zhongguo xiandai sixiang shilun , 46-47.

37. When I was in China during the latter half of 1987, Haideng fashi (Haideng the High Priest) was the most popular series on TV. During conversations with Chinese friends and strangers whom I met on trains and on the streets, I learned that the popularity of Taiji boxing and qigong since the mid-1980s had a lot to do with the popular imagination of magic healing and Daoist occultism.

38. The debate involved May Fourth celebrities Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu, and Liang Qichao, representative figures in different ideological camps. Because the cultural agenda of China at that time was inextricably subjugated to the historical imperative of national survival, the terms of debate were inevitably overdetermined by the utilitarian concerns of the reconstruction of social mores ( shehui gaizao ), for which issues of worldview ( rensheng guan ) appeared far more urgent than those of methodology. As a result, the May Fourth debate was cast in arguments voiced between those who advocated a deterministic scientific worldview that claimed to lay bare historical processes and those who clung to an old humanistic worldview self-enclosed in the local ideology of free will, self-cultivation, and intuitive reasoning.

39. Su Xiaokang, "Dangdai Zhongguo de wenhua jinzhang," 21, 23.

40. As early as 1948, Mou Zongsan classified the history of Chinese Confucianism into three different stages of development. He raised the problematic of "Confucianism of the third stage" that included the systems of thoughts represented by Liang Shuming and his peers such as Zhang Junli, Xiong Shili, Feng Youlan, Qian Mu, Tang Junyi, and Xu Fuguan. Mou traced the Confucian tradition of the Dao back to the first stage (the period from Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi to Dong Zhongshu of Han Dynasty) and the second stage (the neo-Confucian learning of Song and Ming Dynasty). Tu Weiming reiterated the principle of Mou Zongsan's classification while emphasizing that the contemporary revival of neo-Confucianism during the 1980s served as the continuation of the third stage ruxue that Mou's generation pioneered, and that the completion of the third stage ruxue depends upon the younger generation such as Cai Renhou, Liu Shuxiang, and himself.

41. For creative transformation of neo-Confucianism, see Tu Weiming, "Rujia chuantong de xiandai zhuanhua" (The modern transformation of Confucian tradition), "Chuantong wenhua yu Zhongguo xianshi" (Traditional culture and Chinese reality), and "Chuangzao de zhuanhua'' (Creative transformation), in Ruxue disanqi fazhan de qianjing wenti , 3-144.

42. Tu Weiming was prolific in his writings about neo-Confucianism. For a detailed account of his thoughts on Confucianism of the third stage, see "Ruxue disanqi fazhan de qianjing wenti: 1, 2 & 3" (The problems about the future development of the Confucianism of the third stage: 1, 2 & 3), Mingbao yuekan , 21, no. 1 (1986), 27-32; 21, no. 2 (1986), 36-38; and 21, no. 3 (1986), 65-68. Yu Yingshi, "Zhongguo jinshi zongjiao lunli yu shangren jingshen" (Religion and ethics in modern China and the spirit of merchants), Zhishi fenzi (Intellectuals) 2, no. 2 (1986), 3-45.

43. Arif Dirlik, "Post-Socialism/Flexible Production: Marxism in Contemporary Radicalism," Polygraph 6/7 (1993), 149.

44. Song Zhongfu, Zhao Jihui, and Pei Dayang, Ruxue zai xiandai Zhongguo (Confucianism in modern China ) (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 1991), 377.

45. Ibid., 418-30.

46. Yang Bingzhang, "Guanyu ruxue disanqi he Zhongguo wenhua de qiantu" (Regarding Confucianism of the third stage and the future of Chinese culture), in Zhongguo dalu dangdai wenhua bianqian , 163.

47. Song, Zhao, and Pei, Ruxue zai xiandai Zhongguo , quoting Zhang Dainian, 355.

48. Between August 31 and September 4 in 1987, The China Foundation of Confucius held a joint international conference with the Research Institute of East Asian Philosophy in Singapore at Qufu. The main theme of the conference was the revalorization of Confucianism as a cultural model for East Asian industrial nations. The Weberian influence was evident. In October 1989, on the 2540th anniversary of the birth of Confucius, another international symposium on Confucianism was held in Beijing. Ibid., 357-58.

49. Li Zonggui, "'Xiandai xinrujia sichao yanjiu' de youlai he Xuanzhou huiyi de zhengming" (The origin of "studies on modern neo-Confucian thoughts" and the debates at the Xuanzhou Conference), in Xiandai xinruxue yanjiu lunji (The collection of essays on modern neo-Confucianism), ed. Fang Keli and Li Jinquan (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1989), 1: 333-35.

50. Tu, "Dalu ruxue," 31.

51. In his interviews with Tu Weiming, Xue Young raised the issue of the potential misuse of Confucianism in mainland China. Tu Weiming also recognized that it was difficult for Confucianism to attain a "healthy development" in China. Though it is understandable that Xue Young might feel constrained to discuss the issue, Tu's unwillingness to examine the question more thoroughly gives the impression that he wishes to promote a Chinese neo-Confucian revival at any cost. His evasiveness about the problematic implications of the neo-Confucian renaissance in the context of mainland Chinese politics is disturbing. See Tu's Ruxue disanqi fazhan de qianjing wenti , 57. On the Party's involvement in Confucian revivalism, see Yang Bingzhang, "Guanyu ruxue," 167.

52. Song, Zhao, and Pei, Ruxue zai xiandai Zhongguo , 447.

53. Su Xiaokang, "Dangdai Zhongguo de wenhua jinzhang," 27.

54. Su Xiaokang attributes the onset of the Fever to the cultural and spiritual rebellion of Chinese intellectuals against the tyrannical rule of a homogeneous ideology. Ibid., 31. Chen Kuide summarizes the activities of the Cultural Discussion in terms of a pan-culturalism that took form in the intellectuals' critique of the regime under the disguise of an all-out cultural critique. See Chen Kuide, "Wenhua re," 51-55. Both critics presuppose that the Cultural Discussion was targeted at an antagonist—sometimes named as the Party, sometimes as the socialist system, but most of the time, as a vague combination of both.

55. In the following two sections on instrumental and substantive rationality, I will make frequent references to the information given in the following articles: Wang Hongzhou, "Gang-Tai xuezhe dui Zhongguo chuantong wenhua de yanjiu: Jinnianlai guanyu Zhongguo wenhua wenti yanjiu zhongshu" (Researches of Hong Kong and Taiwan scholars on Chinese traditional culture: A summary of the studies of the problems of Chinese culture in recent years), Renmin ribao , 30 May 1989, overseas edition, 2; Wang He, "Ruhe pingjia chuantong wenhua: Jinnianlai guanyu Zhongguo wenhua wenti yanjiu zongshu" (How to evaluate traditional culture: A summary of the studies of the problems of Chinese culture in recent years), Renmin ribao , 27 May 1989, overseas edition, 2; Li Cunshan, ''Zhongguo chuantong wenhua yu Zhongguo xiandaihua: II" (Chinese traditional culture and Chinese modernization: A sequel) Renmin ribao , 20 August 1986, overseas edition, 2; Guo Qiyong, "Guanyu jinnianlai Zhongguo wenhua he Zhongxi wenhua bijiao yanjiu de pingjie" (Comments on Chinese culture studies and the comparative studies of Chinese and Western cultures in recent years), Renmin ribao , 3 December 1986, overseas edition, 2. A longer version of this article was published in Dongfang de liming: Zhongguo wenhua zouxiang jindai de licheng (The dawn in the east: The journey of Chinese culture toward modern times), ed. Feng Tianyu (Chengdu: Bashu shushe, 1988), 464-82. Other articles that helped my understanding of the neo-Confucian revival include "Guanyu Zhongguo chuantong wenhua de xingzhi'' (Regarding the nature of traditional Chinese culture"), Qiusuo (Quest) 2 (1988); "Gaige yu chuantong wenhua moshi de zhuanhuan" (Reform and the transformation of the models of traditional culture), Jinyang Xuekan (Jinyang journal) 3 (1988); "Lun dangdai Zhongguo wenhua de neizai chongtu" (On the internal conflicts of contemporary Chinese culture), Fudan Xuebao (Fudan journal) 3 (1988); "Zhongguo chuantong wenhua 'hexie' tezheng de fansi" (Reflections on the characteristics of "harmony" in Traditional Chinese Culture), Tianjin shehui kexue (Tianjin social sciences) 5 (1988); "Guanyu Zhongguo chuantong wenhua de zhengti fansi yu chaoyue" (Thoughts on the totalizing introspection and transcendence of traditional Chinese culture), Xuexi yu tansuo (Learning and exploration) 4 (1988).

56. A typical argument from the middle ground can be found in Feng Tianyu, "Dai xuyan: Zhongguo wenhua de jindaihua wenti" (Preface: The issues of the modernization of Chinese culture) in Dongfang de liming , 9-10. Feng pointed out that Japan's modernization could not be exclusively attributed to Confucianism because Japan benefited primarily from its creative utilization of Western learning that was introduced into the country in the mid-nineteenth century.

I need to point out that all the major players (advocates as well as critics) overseas and at home in the neo-Confucian revivalism were male intellectuals. I believe that what is at stake in the potential breakdown of Confucian values is not simply tradition or communal values, but patriarchal elitism, and in more specific terms, the privileged status of the gendered power elite—the legitimate guardians and owners of hard-core and orthodox knowledge. This may in part explain why the spokespeople of neo-Confucianism were exclusively male. It is understandable that female scholars were not interested in propagating a state philosophy from which they had nothing to gain for thousands of years. But it surprised me that Chinese women scholars did not seize this opportunity to join the male critics of neo-Confucianism in critiquing the five hierarchical relations ( wulun ) that victimized them for thousands of years.

57. Mou Zongshan, Zhang Junli, Tang Junyi, and Xu Fuguan published their manifesto "Zhongguo wenhua yu shijie" (Chinese culture and the world) simultaneously in Hong Kong's Minzhu pinglun (Commentaries on democracy) and the Taiwan journal Zaisheng (Rebirth).

58. Han Qiang, "Xiandai xinruxue yanjiu zhongshu (1986-87)" (A synthetic account of the studies of modern neo-Confucianism (1986-87), in Xiandai xinruxue yanjiu lunji , 1: 346-49, quoting Zhu Riyao, Cao Deben, Sun Xiaochun, Mao Dan, and Bao Zunxin.

59. Ibid., 347, quoting Bao Zunxin.

60. For mainland Chinese scholars, modern neo-Confucianism is firmly grounded in the moral metaphysics of lixue , especially in the "Learning of the Mind" ( xinxing ) represented by Wang Yangming and Lu Jiuyuan's School. See Fang Keli, "Guanyu xiandai xinrujia yanjiu de jige wenti" (Several questions regarding the studies of modern neo-Confucianism), in Xiandai xinruxue yanjiu lunji , 1: 2; Li Zonggui, "'Xiandai xinrujia sichao yanjiu,''' 336, quoting Hu Xiao.

61. This response was made by Chen Kuide during my conversation with him at the "Culture China" conference, Princeton University, May 4, 1991.

62. Chen Kuide, "Wenhua re," 48.

63. Introductions about Marcuse, Adorno, and Horkheimer were seen in academic journals here and there. One of the typical presentations can be seen in Zhao Yifan, "Falankefu xuepai lümei wenhua piping" (The Frankfurt School and overseas culture criticism), Dushu 1 (1981), 34-43.

64. Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), 174, 183.

65. "Chinese Dissent, Ready to Wear," Harper's , February 1993, 23.

66. Liu Xiaobo, "Yinzi: Fanchuantong yu Zhongguo zhishi fenzi" (Foreword Antitradition and Chinese intellectuals), in Xuanze de pipan: Yu sixiang lingxiu duihua (Choice and critique: A dialogue with the leader of philosophy ) (Taibei: Fengyun shidai chuban gongsi, 1989), 1-11. Liu propagated a "thorough break from traditional concepts" (5). In order to accomplish that goal, Liu argued that Chinese intellectuals have to take Western culture as the referential framework for their construction of Chinese modernity.

67. Chen Lai is perhaps the first who used the term "hermeneutics" to characterize Gan Yang's thoughts. See Chen Lai, "Fulu," 582-83. Zhang Xudong followed suit in ''The Political Hermeneutics of Cultural Constitution: Reflections on the Chinese 'Cultural Discussion' (1985-1989)" (working paper in Asian/Pacific Studies, Asian/Pacific Studies Institute, Duke University, 1994).

68. Feng Tianyu, "Dai xuyan," 6. Feng named several regions, including the mid- and lower-stream of the Yangzi River and the region surrounding the Pearl River, as locales where traces of the "capitalist mode of production" could be detected: textile and pottery industry, mining, and smeltery. Also see Xiao Shafu, "Zhongguo zhexue qimeng de kanke daolu" (The rugged path of the enlightenment [movement] in Chinese philosophy), in Dongfang de liming , 17.

69. Xiao Shafu, "Zhongguo zhexue qimeng de kanke daolu," 23-25.

70. Feng Tianyu, "Cong Ming Qing zhiji de zaoqi qimeng wenhua dao jindai xinxue" (From the early enlightenment culture of Ming and Qing to the new learning of the modern era), in Dongfang de liming , 52.

71. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse , 58.

72. Fang Yizhi's concept of jinxin (to exert one's heart and mind) called for a thorough utilization of the intuitive nature of wisdom—a concept that keeps pace with Mencius' notion of liangzhi (innate knowledge), Daoists' wuzhi zhi zhi (knowledge that does not know), and the Buddhists' banruo (prajna) . Fang had the reputation of being half scientific and half religious. He tried to transcend all three traditional systems of thought but remained deeply embedded within them at the same time. For a detailed analysis of his thinking, see Wang Yu, "Du Fang Yizhi 'Dongxi jun'" (Reading "East-West equilibrium"), in Ming Qing sixiangjia lunji (A collection of essays on the Ming-Qing philosophers) (Taibei: Lianjing chuban shiye gongsi, 1981), 211-29, especially 212, 218-19.

73. Yu Wujin, "Lun dangdai Zhongguo wenhua de jizhong beilun," 2.

74. Wang Fuzhi, "Tun," in Zhouyi waizhuan in Zhongguo xueshu minzhu jinshi yuyi (Recent interpretations and translation of the classical Chinese Great Books), ed. the Xi'nan Books Editorial Committee (Taibei: Xi'nan shuju, 1972), 5: 115.

75. See Huang Zongxi, "Yuan jun," "Yuan chen," "Yuan fa," in Mingyi daifang lu , in Zhongguo xueshu minzhu jinshi yuyi , 5: 3-5, 7-9, 10-11.

76. Huang Zongxi, "Caiji 3," in Minyi daifang lu , in Zhongguo xueshu minzhu jinshi yuyi , 5: 32.

77. Tang Zhen, "Daming," in Qianshu in Zhongguo xueshu minzhu jinshi yuyi , 5: 245, 257.

78. Xu tended to comply. Fang tended to critically select. See Zhang Yongtang, "Fang Yizhi yu xixue" (Fang Yizhi and Western learning), in Zhongguo zhexue sixiang lunji , ed. Yu Yingshi, Xiang Weixin, and Liu Fuzeng (The collection of essays on Chinese philosophy and thought) (Taibei: Mutong chubanshe, 1976), the Qing volume, 200.

79. Liang Qichao, "Ming Qing zhijiao Zhongguo sixiangjie jiqi daibiao renwu" (The field of Chinese philosophy at the transition between Ming and Qing dynasty and its representative figures), in Zhongguo zhexue sixiang lunji , the Qing volume, 6.

80. Tu, "Ruxue disanqi fazhan de qianjing wenti," 310, 308-9. Li Zehou agrees with Tu on this point. He cites Gu Yanwu's pragmatic spirit as a good example of the learning of waiwang (the kingliness without) emphasized by modern and contemporary neo-Confucianists. See Li Zehou, Zhongguo gudai sixiang shilun (On the history of ancient Chinese history of thought) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1985), 278.

81. Xiao Gongquan, Zhongguo zhengzhi sixiang shi (The history of Chinese political thought) (Taibei: Wenhua University Press, 1980), 2: 607-10.

82. See ibid., 622, and Yu Yingshi, "Qingdai sixiangshi de yige xinjieshi" (A new interpretation of the intellectual history of the Qing Dynasty), in Zhongguo zhexue sixiang lunji , 5: 11-48, originally published in Zhonghua wenhua fuxing yuekan (The Chinese cultural renaissance monthly) 9, no. 1. Although Gu Yanwu and Huang Zongxi earned reputations as anti- lixue thinkers, Yu Yingshi demonstrates that they both had deep ties with the "Learning of Reason," the neo-Confucian school of the Cheng-Zhu sect.

83. Yu Yingshi, "Qingdai sixiangshi de yige xinjieshi," 29.

84. Some mainland cultural critics of the post-Mao era have begun to comment on the paradoxes of Chinese enlightenment movements that failed throughout modern Chinese history. Yu Wujin's "Dangdai Zhongguo wenhua de jizhong beilun" is one example. Even Liu Zaifu, a representative of cultural elite, dwells at length on the personality split from which the May Fourth generation suffered by being caught in two conflicting cultural models. See Liu Zaifu, "Liangci lishixing de tupo: Cong 'Wusi' xinwenhua yundong dao xinshiqi de 'xiandai wenhua yishi'") (Two historical breakthroughs: From the "May Fourth'' New Culture Movement to "modern cultural consciousness" of the new era), Renmin ribao , 27 April 1980, overseas edition, 2. This kind of critique was accompanied by a small handful of articles that emerged toward the end of the 1980s to question the concept of utopia. The two critiques—that of enlightenment and that of utopia—were parallel discourses that could lead to the long overdue discussions of the paralogics of Chinese enlightenment. Besides Yan Bofei's "Paoqi wutuobang," an example of such discourse is Wang Meng, ''Fanmian wutuobang de qishi" (The revelation of reverse utopianism), Dushu 2 (1989), 44-47. Both essays call for anti-utopianism.

85. Gan Yang, "Ruxue zai xiandai Zhongguo de jiaose yu chulu" (The role and prospects of Confucianism in modern China), in Women zai chuangzao chuantong , 1, 2.

86. Ibid., 10, 7. Gan Yang quotes from Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France —"We compensate, we reconcile, we balance"—to suggest that the modern mission and function of Confucianism consists in its compensatory role to help modernity achieve its equilibrium.

87. Ibid., 20-21.

88. Ibid., 6, 21.

89. Chen Kuide, "Wenhua re," 47.

90. Gan's manifesto appears in "Bashi niandai," 70. His proposal of "conservationism"—crystallized in his paper "The Role and Prospects of Confucianism in Modern China"—was delivered at an international conference on "The Questions and Prospects about the Development of Confucianism" held in Singapore in August 1988.

91. Chen Lai mentions briefly Gan Yang's significant departure from the hermeneutic tradition of Gadamer. He emphasizes Gan's negative definition of the concept of tradition. Indeed, in his 1985 article "Bashi niandai wenhua taolun de jige wenti," Gan denies the existence of a tradition (of which Confucianism forms a major part) that stands outside of the hermeneutic enclosure of modernity. Tradition, in other words, is subordinate to modernity. Tradition can never recreate itself from its own standpoint. Only modernity can achieve the task. Very little was said about the subtle transition from Gan's earlier phase of neartotal negation of tradition to his middle career of conservationism. See Chen Lai, "Fulu," 583.

92. Gan Yang, "Bianzhe qianyan" (Editor's preface), in Zhongguo dangdai wenhua yishi , iii. It is also worth noting Gan's views about the sequence of events that led to the June Fourth crackdown in 1989. The crackdown served to reinforce Gan's antiradicalism and his conviction that revolution is not the best solution to China's dilemma. I had a lengthy conversation with Gan in Chicago in January 1993, during which we exchanged views on a variety of subjects pertaining to the politics of post-Mao China. His antiradicalist stance is expressed most clearly in the draft of a proposal for his manuscript China after 1989 .

93. Gan, "Ruxue zai xiandai Zhongguo de jiaose yu chulu," 22.

94. Gan, "Bashi niandai," 32.

95. Ibid., 30.

96. Zhang Xudong, "The Political Hermeneutics," 38-39.

97. Gan, "Bashi niandai," 55.

98. For his critique of "anxiety consciousness," see Gan Yang, "Ziyou de linian: Wusi chuantong zhi queshimian" (The ideal concept of freedom: The blind spots of the May Fourth tradition), Dushu 5 (1989), 12-13.

99. I am referring to Gan Yang's project China after 1989 . The draft of his proposal stresses the "uniqueness of the Chinese [economic] experience" in comparison with its counterparts in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Gan reaffirms the perspective of "gradualist reform" as a way of ''avoiding radical revolution" (1-2).

100. See the outline of Gan Yang's talk "Wenhua Zhongguo yu xiangtu Zhongguo," 1-5. Also see the draft proposal of his China after 1989 .

101. Zhang Xudong, "On Some Motifs in the Chinese 'Cultural Fever' of the Late 1980s: Social Change, Ideology, and Theory," Social Text 39 (summer 1994), 154.

102. Those who were closely associated with the committee (Chen Lai and Zhang Xudong, for instance) would disagree with me by arguing that Gan Yang's hermeneutic school occupied a central position in the Cultural Discussion. Both gave the school considerable coverage in their articles on the Cultural Discussion while leaving out the qimeng school completely. I need to emphasize that although all the discourses created during the Cultural Discussion were elitist, the hermeneutic school was twice-removed from the public because of its strong affiliation with the academy. Furthermore, the school's adoption of unfamiliar Western theoretical vocabulary of hermeneutics mystified and alienated many participants of the Cultural Discussion. Its position as a cultural discourse both during and after the Cultural Discussion is therefore marginal.

103. The traditional term qimeng invokes the beginning act of education in which a child departs from the state of ignorance with first lessons in learning how to read and write. In late Qing, the term incorporated the meaning of being enlightened with the knowledge of modernity.

104. Li Zehou, "Response to Lin Yu-sheng" (paper presented at the roundtable discussion of neo-Confucianism at the annual meeting of the Asian Studies Association, Washington, D.C., 26 March 1993).

105. Li Zehou, Pipan zhexue de pipan: Kangde shuping (Critiquing the critique of philosophy: On Kant), rev. ed. (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1986), 56-57. Li contrasts Hegel with Kant by emphasizing the former's theoretical focus on the "objective realistic struggles of the human subject." How to study the "subjective psychological composition" of human subjectivity, a Kantian thesis, constitutes, in Li's view, the most important problematic of the contemporary inquiry into the Communist philosophy of humanity.

106. Ibid., 56.

107. Li Zehou, "Manshuo xiti Zhongyong," in Zhongguo xiandai sixiang shilun , 419-20.

108. Ibid., 420, 421.

109. For case studies of rural economy, see N. C. Sen, Rural Economy and Development in China (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1990), especially 137-206. Also see Chengxiang xietiao fazhan yanjiu (Research on the urbanrural coordinated development), ed. Zhou Erliu and Zhang Yulin (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1991). For the proposal of "rural China," see Gan, "Wenhua Zhongguo yu xiangtu Zhongguo," 2.

110. Li Zehou, "Manshuo xiti zhongyong," 424.

111. Ibid., 421.

112. For his discussion of China's cultural-psychological formation, see Li Zehou, Zhongguo gudai sixiang shilun , 32-34.

113. Ibid., 34-35, emphasis mine.

114. Li Zehou, "Manshuo xiti zhongyong," 426.

115. At the convention in March 1993, in his talk "Response to Lin Yusheng," Li Zehou also emphasized that both "sedimentation" and "cultural-psychological formation'' are not closed concepts.

116. Li Zehou, Zhongguo gudai sixiang shilun , 319.

117. Ibid., 322.

118. Ibid., 277-98.

119. Ibid., 322.

120. Li Zehou, Pipan zhexue , 436, n. 2.

121. Li Zehou, Zhongguo gudai sixiang shilun , 322.

122. Li Zehou, Pipan zhexue , 423-24, 435.

123. Ibid., 94.

124. Li Zehou, "Manshuo xiti zhongyong," 427-28.

125. Perry Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism (London: Verso, 1979), 82. Emphasis is in the original text.

126. Li Zehou, Zhongguo gudai sixiang shilun , 316.

127. Anderson, Considerations , 82.

128. Li Zehou, Pipan zhexue , 362.

129. A quick look at Li Zehou's blanket condemnation of Western Marxism reveals a curious logic that spells out the subtle correspondence between Western Marxism and Maoism in his system of thought. What upsets Li Zehou the most (the section on Western Marxists is marred with a kind of raw emotionalism rarely seen in his writings) is labeled in a shorthand fashion as "subjectivism," "voluntarism," "individualism,'' "antagonism'' to the concept of "historical determinism" and their failure to recognize the objective laws of the motion of the forces of production (ibid., 358-59). Although Li Zehou stops short of openly evoking the name of Mao Zedong, his attacks on Western Marxists' turning away from economics and politics to the study of superstructures (cultural ideology in particular) and his sharp criticisms of their alleged indifference to the objective laws of society and history unmistakably evoke the memories of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, both of which were attributed to Mao's faith in voluntarism.

130. Ibid., 199.

131. Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-50 (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1973), 4, 64.

132. Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory , rev. ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960), 322.

133. Li Zehou, Pipan zhexue , 363.

134. Jay, The Dialectical Imagination , 280. Li Zehou, Pipan zhexue , 363.

135. Li Zehou, Zhongguo gudai sixiang shilun , 29.

136. Li Zehou, "Response to Lin Yu-sheng," 7.

137. Li Zehou, Zhongguo gudai sixiang shilun , 29.

138. Li Zehou, Pipan zhexue , 56-67.

139. Li Zehou, "Response to Lin Yu-sheng," 9.

140. For his discussion of shehui shijian , see Li Zehou, Pipan zhexue , 258.

141. Ibid., 340, 204.

142. Li Zehou, Zhongguo gudai sixiang shilun , 37.

143. In August 1987 when I visited the city with my students on the Duke Study in China Program, we danced in the square in the evenings and marveled at the temple's transformation from a religious shrine to a secular fairground at night. During the day, we could wander into the compound free, but in the evenings, tickets were sold at the main gate for admission.

144. Xu Junyao mentioned "fever for 'knowledgeable elements'" in his "Zhishi fenzi he xiandai shehui: Cong Gelanxi dao xinzuopai de sikao" (Intellectuals and modern society: From Gramci to the New Left), Dushu 9 (1988), 23.

145. See the section on "Liu Zaifu: The Master Grammarian of the Subject" in chapter five, "Romancing the Subject."

146. See Lin Jianchu's introduction to the book, "Yibu kaituoxing de zhuzuo: Ping Lei Zhenxiao Zhongguo rencai sixiangshi (diyi juan) ," Renmin ribao , 28 November 1986, overseas edition, 2.

147. Li Cunshan, "Zhongguo chuantong wenhua yu Zhongguo xiandaihua: II," 2.

148. There was a backlash starting in late 1985 on Zhang Xianliang's gender politics and on his portrayal of Zhang Yonglin, the main protagonist in his trilogy. Critiques were focused on Half of a Man Is a Woman . A typical review characterizes Zhang Yonglin as a hypocrite rather than a hero. Negative assessments of Zhang Yonglin abound. See Huang Ziping, "Zhengmian zhankai ling yu rou de bodou" (Positively unfold the fight between soul and flesh), Wenhui bao , 7 October 1985; Lu Rongchun, "Zhanshi de zitai yanbuzhu beique de linghun" (The posture of a warrior cannot hide a mean soul), Zuoping yu zhengming (Literary works and contending views) 2 (1986). Both articles were reprinted in a collection of critical essays Ping "Nanren de yiban shi nüren '' (On "Half of a man is a woman"), ed. by Ningxia People's Publishers (Yinchuan: Ningxia renmin chubanshe, 1987), 1-3, 62-67.

149. Liu Xiaobo, "Wufa huibi de fansi: You jibu zhishi fenzi ticai de xiaoshuo suo xiangdaode" (An unavoidable introspection: Thoughts triggered by several novels on the subject of intellectuals), Wenyi lilun (Theories of literature and the arts) 12 (1986), 177.

150. Ibid., 175.

151. This excerpt was taken from a report on Fang Lizhi's lectures at Beijing University, "Fang Lizhi zai Beida yanjiang luyin jielu" (Summaries of Fang Lizhi's talks at Beida), Zhongyang ribao , 3 February 1987, overseas edition. For a critique of Fang Lizhi, see Richard C. Kraus, "The Lament of Astrophysicist Fang Lizhi: China's Intellectuals in a Global Context," in Marxism and the Chinese Experience , ed. Arif Dirlik and Maurice Meisner (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1989), 294-315.

152. Liu Zaifu, "Liangci lishixing de tupo," 2.

153. Liu Zaifu, Renlun ershiwuzhong (Treatises on twenty-five human species) (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1992), 52-60.

154. Ibid., 60.