The Way to Achieve “This Culture of Ours”: An Investigation Based on the Viewpoints of Pre-Qin Confucianism and Song Confucianism

Abstract

The concept of wen 文 has multiple meanings, but it plays an exceptionally important role in the development of Confucianism and Chinese philosophical terms. Pre-Qin Confucianism 先秦儒学 and Song Confucianism (Song dynasty Neo-Confucians 宋代儒学/宋代新儒家) are two important representatives in the history of Confucianism. Confucius has insisted that although the heaven is not going to destroy wen, wen must exist in everyone’s xing 性, and only when placed within a community can it develop. In Pre-Qin Confucianism, wen completed the transformation from the long established social political structure of the Zhou dynasty and its corresponding moral principles to the consciousness of consummate conduct and ritual propriety based on human instinct and humanistic rationality. Song dynasty Neo-Confucians inherited this Confucian mission and developed the spirit of wen in their period. They emphasized the necessity of learning classics and then writing articles to get closer to the heart-mind of sages and then to build a cultural community together. Both Pre-Qin Confucianism and Song Confucianism have been applying their viewpoints to achieve a community, which is “this culture of ours” 斯文.