Fang Keli
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Fang Keli (; 28 June 1938 – 21 April 2020) was a Chinese New Confucian philosopher and a member of the
Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
. He was best known for his work in New Confucianism and his theories which attempt to fusion
Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
and
Chinese culture Chinese culture () is one of the Cradle of civilization#Ancient China, world's earliest cultures, said to originate five thousand years ago. The culture prevails across a large geographical region in East Asia called the Sinosphere as a whole ...
.


Early life

Fang Keli was born in June 1938 in
Xiangtan Xiangtan ( zh, s=湘潭) is a prefecture-level city in east-central Hunan province, south-central China. The hometowns of several founding leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, including Chairman Mao Zedong, President Liu Shaoqi, and Marshal P ...
,
Hunan Hunan is an inland Provinces of China, province in Central China. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the Administrative divisions of China, province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to the east, Gu ...
, China. His father, Fang Zhuangyou, was a historian and professor at
Wuhan University Wuhan University (WHU; 武汉大学) is a key comprehensive public university in Wuhan, Hubei, China. It is directly affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Ministry of Education of China. The un ...
. His mother was a chief-leader of Women's Work, also at Wuhan University. Fang said that, “ ewas, naturally, influenced by isfamily’s tradition both intellectually and culturally. But growing up angwas influenced more greatly by the historical period, the collective life in school and the education egot from the Communist Party and isteachers.” As a student Fang earned high marks and was a leader in both the Young Pioneers and the
Communist Youth League The Communist Youth League of China (CYLC; also known as the Young Communist League of China or simply the Communist Youth League or CYL) is a people's organization of the People's Republic of China for youth between the ages of 14 and 28, r ...
. One year prior to his enrollment at
Renmin University The Renmin University of China (RUC) is a public university in Haidian, Beijing, Haidian, Beijing, China. The university is affiliated with the Ministry of Education (China), Ministry of Education, and co-funded by the Ministry of Education and ...
, the Anti-Rightist campaign began and Fang was disciplined by the Communist Youth League for undisclosed reasons. He cites this as an “important turning point in islife.” In 1958, Fang was sent to work in rural
Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
where he would partake in hard labor for six months. In July 1962, he graduated from Renmin University's philosophy department. Then, between 1964 and 1965, Fang participated in the Four Clean-ups of the
Socialist Education Movement __NOTOC__ The Socialist Education Movement (, abbreviated 社教运动 or 社教運動), also known as the Four Cleanups Movement () was a 1963–1965 movement launched by Mao Zedong in the People's Republic of China. Mao sought to remove reactio ...
. In 1969, Fang was made to enroll in the cadre's school at the People's University in
Jiangxi ; Gan: ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = , translit_lang1_type3 = , translit_lang1_info3 = , image_map = Jiangxi in China (+all claims hatched).svg , mapsize = 275px , map_caption = Location ...
province where he would become an active worker and gain first-hand experience with social reform.


Career

Fang published his first major work, ''The Theory of the Unity of Knowing and Doing in Chinese Philosophical History'', in 1982. It was one of the first books concerning Chinese philosophy to be published after the Cultural Revolution. Fang's interests were broad through the early 1980s, a time which saw the scholar making contributions in such topics as the distinction between Chinese concepts of “
Tao The Tao or Dao is the natural way of the universe, primarily as conceived in East Asian philosophy and religion. This seeing of life cannot be grasped as a concept. Rather, it is seen through actual living experience of one's everyday being. T ...
” and “ Qi.” The latter half of the 1980s, continuing into the 1990s marked a new phase in which ''ruxue'' began to receive consideration as a means of “ sinicizing” Marxism in China.Makeham, John. Lost Soul: "Confucianism" in Contemporary Chinese Academic Discourse. Published by the Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2008. In 1986, Fang, then working at
Nankai University Nankai University is a public university in Tianjin, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. Nankai University was establ ...
in
Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...
, helped to found an academic group of over 50 researchers which studied Contemporary New Confucianism, or Contemporary New Ru Learning (''Dangdai xin ruxue''). This undertaking would span a decade's time, making it the most costly and extensive humanities project ever sponsored by China's
Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
. From 1994 to 2000 Fang served as President of the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He was elected an academician of the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) is a Chinese state research institute and think tank. It is a ministry-level institution under the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The CASS is the highest academic institution and c ...
in 2006.


Philosophy

The 1986 research team would lead Fang to conclude that, as of the May 4th Movement, New Ru Learning, Marxism and Western liberalism were most prominent schools of thought in the nation. This equivocation of New Ru Learning and Marxism pushed the former to an elevated status in the public eye, despite Fang's protests. Contrary to the public clamor for New Ru Learning, Fang saw ''ruxue'' as a fundamentally feudal ideology—though he still believed there was historical and cultural value to be derived from it. He explained that all ideologies, their predecessors and their successors function within the context of one another. In this way all ideas retain a level of relevance. Fang championed the idea of critical inheritance, which he developed from the philosophy of his contemporary, Zhang Dainian. Though similar ideas had been promulgated as early as the old
Chinese idiom ''Chengyu'' ( zh, t=, s=, first=t, p=chéngyǔ, tr=set phrase) are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expressions, most of which consist of four Chinese characters. ''Chengyu'' were widely used in Literary Chinese and are still common in ...
, develop what is positive and discard what is negative (''qu zao qu jing''), Zhang's rendition was different in that it factored the West into its equation. Zhang sought to first divide traditional Chinese culture into its dross and its essence, its worthy and unworthy, then to do the same with Western culture and synthesize the two to achieve a ‘synthetic creation.’ Of this, Fang said:
“I personally accepted the cultural propositions of the school of comprehensive innovation represented by Mr. Zhang, and I summarized the basic ideas of this school in the following words: to make the past serve the present; to make foreign things serve China; to be critical of inheritance and comprehensively innovate.”
Fang sought to combine Chinese culture with Marxism and thereby create an improved society. Relative to some of his peers, he was quite moderate and condemned more essentialist positions:
“…I approve of the theory of cultural comprehensive innovation instead of “Cultural Radicalism” or “Cultural Conservatism”. Based on this kind of cultural standpoint, I believe that the way of “wholesale Westernization” and “the revival of Confucianism” will go nowhere in China.”
Fang did not wish for a revival of Ruism, nor did he want China to be thoroughly Westernized. Delving further into Zhang's model of synthetic creation, Fang laid out four tenets for cultural application. Firstly, one must have an open mindset which is malleable and thoughtful. Second, neither Chinese culture nor Western culture should be overly dominant. For synthesis, it is important to keep Chinese tradition and to then learn from the West. Third, the manner of critical inheritance ought not to be metaphysical, but rather dialectical. Lastly, Fang likens the process to eating and digestion: one must combine unlike elements and then convert them into positive energy. Fang has taught for over 45 years at various universities. He cited teaching as his main work, ranking it above even his highly regarded work as a researcher. Fang viewed many of his research-related endeavors as ultimately serving to educate the younger generation.


Conflicting perspectives

For his work on the New Ru Learning project, Fang was criticized for angling towards his Marxist inclinations—Li Minghui argued that rather than assessing New Ru Learning objectively, Fang actively worked to funnel the study into his own ideology. In 1989,
Jiang Qing Jiang Qing (March 191414 May 1991), also known as Madame Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary, actress, and political figure. She was the fourth wife of Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman of the Communis ...
, a controversial Confucian thinker, published an article in which he identified the failure to revive Confucianism as China's greatest problem. He suggested that “Confucianism should replace Marxism, be restored to its lofty historical status, and become the orthodox thought representing the life and spirit of the Chinese nation.”Jones, David, editor. “A Critique of Jiang Qing’s ‘Political Confucianism.’” Confucianism: Its Roots and Global Significance, by Ming-Huei Lee, University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, 2017, pp. 102–112. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv3zp043.13.


Selected works

* ''History of Chinese Philosophy: the Theory of Knowing and Doing'', People's Publishing Press, 1982, 1986, 1997 * ''Modern Neo-Confucianism and Chinese Modernization'', Tianjing People's Press, 1997 * ''Critical Inheritance and Comprehensive Innovation, in Traditional Culture and Modernization'', March 1995


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fang, Keli 1938 births 2020 deaths 20th-century Chinese philosophers 21st-century Chinese philosophers People from Xiangtan Writers from Hunan Chinese Marxists Chinese Confucianists Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Renmin University of China alumni Academic staff of Nankai University