Zhang Xuecheng ( zh, t=章學誠, w=Chang Hsüeh-ch'eng; 1738–1801) was a Chinese historian and philosopher during the Qing dynasty. His father and his grandfather had been government officials, but, although Zhang achieved the highest

civil service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

examination degree in 1778, he never held high office. Zhang's ideas about the historical process were revolutionary in many ways and he became one of the most enlightened historical theorists of the Qing dynasty, but he spent much of his life in near poverty without the support of a patron and, in 1801, he died, poor and with few friends. It was not until the late 19th century that Chinese scholars began to accept the validity of Zhang's ideas.Hiromu Mimose, "Chang Hsueh-ch'eng" His biographer,

David Nivison David Shepherd Nivison (January 17, 1923 – October 16, 2014) was an American sinologist known for his publications on late imperial and ancient Chinese history, philology, and philosophy, and his 40 years as a professor at Stanford Univer ...

, comments that while his countrymen did not think him a great literary artist, "the infrequent western reader will find his style often both moving and powerful." Zhang developed, Nivison continues, "an organic view of history and the state that approaches Hegelian thought, and then built this view upon and into a theory of culture that sometimes suggests Vico," the Italian philosopher.Nivison
''Chang Hsueh-ch'eng'' p. 1
/ref> His magnum opus, ''On Literature and History'' ( ), was published posthumously, in 1832. In Zhang's view,

Confucianism Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy, Religious Confucianism, religion, theory of government, or way of li ...

developed over time in response to the concrete needs of the people for social organization. This developmental view contrasts with the view of the

Neo-Confucian Neo-Confucianism (, often shortened to ''lǐxué'' 理學, literally "School of Principle") is a Morality, moral, Ethics, ethical, and metaphysics, metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, which originated with Han Yu (768� ...

s that Confucianism is the expression of timeless "principles" or "patterns" that are inherent in the human heart. Zhang's most famous quotation is that "the six classics are all history" ( ). This means that the canonical texts of Confucianism are not to be understood as repositories of timeless wisdom, but as records of the actions and words of the sages in response to specific historical contexts.

References

, ''The Life and Thought of Chang Hsüeh-Ch'eng, 1738-1801.'' (Stanford, Calif.,: Stanford University Press, Stanford Studies in the Civilization of Eastern Asia, 1966).
Google Books
* Ivanhoe, Philip J., trans. (2009). ''On Ethics and History: Essays and Letters of Zhang Xuecheng''. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. . * * Eduard B. Vermeer, "Notions of Time and Space in the early Ch'ing", in: Junjie Huang, Erik Zürcher, ''Time and Space in Chinese Culture'', ed. BRILL, 1995 , on Chang Hsüeh-ch'eng pp. 227�
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Zhang, Xuecheng 1738 births 1801 deaths 18th-century Chinese historians 18th-century Chinese philosophers Chinese Confucianists Historians from Zhejiang Philosophers from Zhejiang Writers from Shaoxing

References

Further reading