Winter
Fakultäten » Philosophische Fakultät » Ostasiatisches Seminar » Sinologie » Prof. Dr. Robert H. Gassmann (emeritiert) » Winter
Completed research project
| Title / Titel | Tradition, Doubt, and Evidence : Old-Text Scholarship in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Qing-Dynasty China | ||
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| Abstract (PDF, 14 KB) | |||
| Original title / Originaltitel | Tradition, Zweifel und Beweis : Die Alttext-Gelehrsamkeit der Qingzeit des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts | ||
| Summary / Zusammenfassung | This study examines the scholastic achievements of Confucian scholarship during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). The main focus is on the first phase of Qing scholarship, during which the principles and methods of exegetical and commentarial occupation with the Chinese classics were reevaluated. During this period, scholars turned their backs on so-called "Song learning", the predominant school of learning in the previous 500 years, and turned towards an exegetical tradition cultivated during the Han dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD). They rejected a "speculative" occupation with the Classics and demanded that every scholarly statement be backed up with evidence. During this phase both scholars' understanding of their own tradition and scholarship itself were transformed, as scholars created and applied new methodological tools, including phonology, the art of critical editing and collation of texts. The changes sketched above form the basic picture of the scholars involved as they see it themselves and also as scholars of late Qing-dynasty see it. The study aims to examine to what extent Qing-dynasty scholarly methodology really differs from that of the Song, to what extent it is congruent with idealized Han-dynasty scholarship, and whether Qing-dynasty scholars really devoted themselves to "pure scholarship", i.e. whether, as one of their postulates insisted, they approached texts without preconceptions. Since Qing-dynasty scholarship was the predominant intellectual current when Western missionaries and Orientalists translated the Chinese Classics in the 19th century, by questioning the foundations Qing scholarship this study also casts a critical light on the Western occupation with Qing texts and on Western sinology in general. |
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| Keywords / Suchbegriffe | Old-Text Scholarship, Qing Dynasty, Confucianism, Dai Zhen, Gu Yanwu, Huang Zongxi, Zhu Yun, Siku Quanshu, Qianlong emperor, Hanxue, Qingxue, philology, Alttext-Schule, Konfuzianismus, Duan Yucai, Wang Niansun, Wang Yinzhi, Jiang Yong, Kangxi Zidian | ||
| Project leadership and contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte |
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| Funding source(s) / Unterstützt durch |
Others |
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| Duration of Project / Projektdauer | Jan 1999 to Dec 2007 |