The Review Of Tu Weiming's "the Third-stage Development Theory Of Confucianism"

For the status of Confucianism in the contemporary world, scholars have actively begun to explore from May 4th Movement. As for the prospects for the development of Confucianism, there have been different opinions in the academic fields. The issue, "the third-stage development of Confucianism", first proposed formally by Mou Zongsan, but it is Tu Weiming to make a comprehensive explanation about this theory. In the beginning, this paper cardings three main characters' important contribution to this theory from the derivation of the theory on "the third-stage development of Confucianism", detailedly analyzes the assumptions on the prospects of Confucianism from Mou Zongsan and Tu Weiming. Mou Zongsan emphasized transforming Confucianism from the perspective of Western culture, but upheld own traditions. He worked on making up for Confucian defects in feat and tried to open "new king outside" from "Saint inside" actively. Based on multi-cultures, Tu Weiming explored prospects for the development of Confucianism in the entire world culture and promoted paralleled development of multi cultures. He did not run after the dominant position of Confucian thinking, but turn to explore its global ethical values and focus on the global influence of Confucian thinking. Firstly, Tu Weiming discussed theoretically the possibility of "the third-stage development of Confucianism". He mainly used two thought resources. Firstly, he borrowed the concept of "Axial Age" from the German philosopher Karl Jaspers to explore the possibility of "the second axial civilization". Secondly, he explained the Confucian tradition could still be harmony with the times through the comparison between "Confucian tradition" and "Confucian China", and between "global awareness" and "Root consciousness", and between "Confucian Humanism" and "Enlightenment mentality". From the investigation of Confucian development in three different environments: China, the industrial East Asia, and even the wider world, particularly Europe and the United States, Tu Weiming thought that in the mainland of China, "some information had been seen", and many "resonant souls" had been discovered. In East Asia, Confucianism had achieved considerable recognition. In the Western world, Confucianism had in common with futurology etc. Here, he focused on the relations between Confucian tradition and industrial East Asia, and considered that Confucian tradition made a positive contribution to the creation of East Asia modern industrial enterprise. Therefore, he explained the prospects for the third-stage development of Confucianism from the practical aspect. Based on these, he also pointed out prerequisites of the third-stage development of Confucianism. They were as follows: making creative responses to West values since the Enlightenment; Reconstructing Confucianism and realizing its creative transformation; identifying Confucianism from intellectuals of different types. Tu Weiming not only explained the possibility of the third-stage development of Confucianism from the theoretical and practical perspectives in detail, also pointed out the problems faced by the development of Confucianism in modern: creative responses to Western culture; "Confucian dimness"; the research obstacles of Confucianism. Accordingly, he believed that the dawn of the third-stage development of Confucianism relied on the efforts of one or two generations. After elaborating on Tu Weiming's assumption, this paper makes a comparative study on the third-stage development of Confucianism within the entire framework of contemporary neo-Confucian thoughts, and states the characteristics of Tu Weiming's theory in recognition on the status of the Confucianism, reflection of Confucian creative transformation, absorption of multi-cultures, use of two-way research method. Meanwhile, against the idea this paper also presents several problems which need further discussions.