| Abstract |
One of the central issues in modern politics is whether a people who have not attained a basic level of competency should have the right to political freedom. This paper examines how the philosopher and public intellectual Zhang Junmai (also known as Carson Chang) struggled with this question. It is found that in 1907 Zhang abandoned J. S. Mill’s idea of a positive correlation between people’s competence and their acquisition of freedom, and later on turned instead to the Neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yang-ming for inspiration. Using Wang’s modes of thinking that “mind is principle” and that “heaven and man are a unity,” Zhang emphasized the effects resulting from party elites’ arousing and representing the people in their resistance to autocratic monarchy. By elaboration on changes in Zhang’s thinking, comparing his thought with that of Mill, and situating Zhang in the social, cultural, and intellectual context of his time, this paper points out that Zhang not only denied the standard for evolution of human culture set by Western civilized countries, he also appropriated traditional Chinese philosophy that stressed that there were no real boundaries between elites and commoners. Zhang’s ideas provided a response to the difficulties in setting up a parliamentary system and the inapplicability of Mill’s political theory in China. On the above issues, Zhang’s thoughts revealed the subjectivity and openness shown by Chinese intellectuals as well as how Western and Chinese, and traditional and modern ideas were applied in an attempt to solve the burning issues of the day. This paper also points to an aspect of Wang Yang-ming’s philosophy that is worth further exploration and may be employed in the development of liberalism in China. |
