ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B

›› 2007, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (04): 754-760.

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Another Voice: The Modern Neo-Confucianism and Chinese Humanistic Psychology

Peng-Yanqin   

  1. Psychological department, Educational institute, Shuzhou university, Shuzhou 215021, China
  • Received:1900-01-01 Revised:1900-01-01 Published:2007-07-30 Online:2007-07-30
  • Contact: Peng Yanqin

Abstract: Different from the western psychology’s “bottom-up” processing which takes scientism as the principle, Chinese traditional psychology keeps “top-down” processing, which emphasizes morality and rational in terms of the mental and the highest level of spirit. Therefore, humanism is the essence. As the typical object of humanistic psychology, Neo-Confucianism has special value and significance for psychology. The unique character and confidence of modern psychology in China based on Chinese traditional psychological thoughts are attributed to the Neo-Confucianism.
It is necessary to make Chinese traditional psychology research systematic and theoretical by using modern psychological methods. At the same time, traditional psychological thoughts do not fade out because of no fruit coming out, because they continuously develop in their own ways. Such a conclusion will benefit us as we can keep confidence in contemporary Chinese psychology. It is possible to achieve the humanistic understanding together with Western psychology discovery.
Due to special history condition, Chinese humanistic psychology developed in two paths: one is scientific psychology which is external, and the other is humanistic psychology which is self-generating. Differentiating between “two principle” of Chinese psychology and “two principle” of western psychology, the former is the exhibition of psychological double attribution, the latter is the offspring of the western’s intrusion. So the understanding of history background and the thinking of the Neo-Confucianism will make us better understand that there is indeed a set of theory system based on scientism, but different from that of the West, which is called Chinese Humanism Psychology.
The modern times witnessed the establishment and formation of Chinese psychology, but also it is the first self-consciousness and self-reflection of Chinese humanism psychology. There is no doubt about the modern Neo-Confucianism acting as the protagonist. The modern Neo-Confucianism which is opposite to scientism and positivism, on the one hand, affirms scientism’s function of improving living condition, and on the other hand, criticizes that scientism leads to exhaustion of mental life and the degradation of humanistic world. Moreover the nature of three-in-one combination with Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, and the evolution of Confucian thoughts, all confirms unique station in the history of Chinese thoughts. The representative study of Chinese humanism psychology concentrates on the modern Neo-Confucianism, with pioneers such as Liang Shuming, Xiong Shili, Feng Youlan and so on, that their study objects include two fields: one is original value’s psychological basic theory, another is psychological answer to life problem

Key words: the modern Neo-Confucianism, Chinese humanism psychology, scientism

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