Ben Hammer

Mainland Chinese society is in a moral crisis. A general lack of concern and sympathy for fellow citizens has become normal social behavior in a country where substandard food products are marketed for profit and injured individuals on the street are ignored by fellow pedestrians. Such phenomena are often ascribed to China's recent economic development, which has proven too rapid for society's moral and spiritual growth. This paper argues that there is a more fundamental reason for such problems, and that is the traditional Confucian ethical system. Confucian ethics provides ample wisdom to guide our actions in the context of specific social roles and relationships. It is conspicuously silent, however, in matters dealing with complete strangers and the anonymous public at large. The result is that the Confucian ethical system allows for serious lapses in public morality and social responsibility while permitting the individual to still be considered a very moral agent in all his fixed social roles.

Yu Yue was one of the most prolific and talented scholars of the late Qing Dynasty. His corpus of works included commentary on a large number of the Confucian classics, compiled in his well-known work Qun Jing Ping Yi. Since its first printing more than a century ago, Qun Jing Ping Yi has always remained in wood-block print form only, or photocopies of its wood-block form. There is a small number of varying editions available to us today, and these different editions have differing value, in that the collation and redaction work that went into the different versions ranged from meticulous to sloppy. This paper introduces the various editions and explains their differences, both in major editing principles and in subtle textual details. This analysis draws heavily on Yu Yue's hand-written manuscripts of Qun Jing Ping Yi which, while only partial, are of enormous academic value because they can both reveal and correct textual errors that have gone undiscovered since the book’s first publishing more than one hundred years ago. (Chinese language)

北京国家图书馆与上海华东师范大学图书馆分别收藏了俞樾《群经平议》的稿本残卷，都是尚未得到应有重视的罕见版本。二单位所藏稿本内容不重复，可以互补，加起来约相当于《群经平议》三分之二。稿本与通行刻本内容大同小异，然而其中不同之处，对于校勘、整理与阅读《群经平议》则大有裨益。本文在梳理探讨各版本基本情况的基础上，进行深入比较研究。从而揭示此两个手稿本具有很高校勘与文献价值，能够纠正通行刻本《群经平议》的若干文本错误，进而有助于理清俞樾的经学思想。

In the midst of this great wave of sinological fervor we are experiencing, I believe it is necessary to take a critical look at Confucianism as a philosophy. Modern China is exhibiting a well-documented crisis of public morality. Most people choose to explain this as a result of over-rapid economic development with no accompanying spiritual guidance; some even offer up Confucianism as a remedy to these social ills. I however put forth here an argument that these social ills are caused in part by Confucianism itself. As many proponents of Confucianism and in particular Confucian role ethics like to point out, Confucianism helps inform us in or moral decisions when dealing with definitive roles and relationships in our lives. I argue, however, that Confucianism is conspicuously silent when it comes to moral responsibility in the face of strangers and society at large. (Chinese language)

今天流行于世的《大学》篇，即是朱熹《四书集注章句》本，跟汉代的样貌不尽相同。程朱几人以为该文存在错简与脱落，于是对此篇文字内容进行大量的调整和补正。本文从几个不同角度讨论此做法的合理性。先通过对郑玄治学方法的分析而推测其对此问题的看法（他对此并无明言）；其次通过比较朱本及郑本《大学》篇的异同以及从汉代竹简书籍和书写的制度来探索程朱所谓错简的现象是否真的有可能发生过；最后从学术规范与完整性的角度谈论程朱错简之说及其补传之做法的合理性。
This article was a part of my master's thesis comparing Zheng Xuan's and Zhu Xi's differing versions of Da Xue Pian-- the Great Learning. One of the most outstanding characteristics of Zhu Xi's version is that he believed the Han Dynasty received version had bamboo strips that were out of order. To correct this purported error, he rearranged the text of Da Xue into what he believed was its original form, and added commentary where he believed it was missing. This article discusses the validity and academic integrity of Zhu Xi's thesis, and conjectures at Zheng Xuan's opinion on the issue. (Chinese language)

Chinese Studies in the east and west are often seen as distinct and even competing fields. The Chinese engage in national studies from a uniquely Chinese point of view, using their Chinese way of thinking; Westerners approach it from a Western point of view, using a distinctly Western way of thinking. The aim of this paper is to discuss the origins of this dichotomy, and to evaluate the extent to which it represents historical and contemporary reality. The thesis of this paper is that, although the clear division between the Western and Chinese approaches to the study of China is based on historical fact, the line that once served to distinguish between the two has diminished and blurred to such an extent that it is no longer relevant. (Chinese language)

This is a very brief essay which is a part of a larger series of my work on Yu Yue's commentary on the Confucian texts. This essay explores the interesting reason why there is one certain character that appears in his manuscript version of Qun Jing Ping Yi (群经平议), but is missing from the woodblock-printed version. (Chinese language)

In 2014, Beijing University’s Ru Zang Center published the first ever fully redacted version of Yu Yue’s 俞樾Qun Jing Ping Yi 群经平议 in modern format. Though the overall editing and emendation work were good, many textual errors still remain. This paper discusses the root of many of these errors from a text critical point of view, looking at the various editions of the original work that could have been utilized, evaluating their differences and merits. Throughout this paper we take samples from Ru Zang’s text, showing where textual errors occurred and how they could have been avoided. (Chinese language)
儒藏編纂與研究中心2014年出版了俞樾的經學著作《群經平議》。此書自從清朝末年付梓，只有木刻本可讀。儒藏本《群經平議》是本書第一次見以整理與排印，給學者們帶來了極大的裨益。此書篇帙浩繁，凡35卷，約四十萬字。因此很難從頭到尾做到“精校”。儒藏本《群經平議》的文本存在不少罅漏，倘若讀者在使用此書時未察覺其中謬誤，便會帶來一些誤會與麻煩。敝文試圖對其中問題較大者給予糾正，同時也歸納分類，闡明其致誤緣故。大體可以分為以下四種致誤原因：1、儒藏所依據的底本不佳；2、儒藏本未參考原初的勘誤表；3、儒藏本未參考俞樾的手稿本；4、儒藏整理者因疏忽而校勘不精。

This article treats on a particular philological question stemming from a passage in the Analects of Confucius. It is a question of the correct pronunciation and meaning of the character 陳 in the passage 卫灵公问陈于孔子. This article argues that it should be pronounced "chen2", arguing against the traditional commentaries. (Chinese language)

Cultural comparisons have many different methods, but there is a commonality, a common error, prevalent in most models today. Cultural comparisons have an overwhelming tendency to set the East and the West in opposition to eachother, and with this as their starting point, create an artificial juxtaposition. Such comparisons do not reflect the reality of either culture and are unfair to both. Looking at this issue historically we find that the erroneous attraction to polarize cultures has existed in academic circles for at least the last century. Looking into the matter even more deeply, pyschological research reveals that polarizing "us" and "others" is in fact a natural disposition to humans, making this problem not just one of academic bias, but of epistemology itself. It is my hope that a thorough analysis of this phenomenon will shed light on much of the work being done in cultural comparisons today, with the further hope that they may be recognized and minimized, creating an opportunity for more accurate portrayals of different cultures and their defining characteristics. In particular, we will be using the popular theory of "Confucian role ethics"  as a case study and a typical example of polarizing cultural comparisons. (Chinese language)

In 2014, Beijing University’s Ru Zang Center published the first ever fully redacted version of Yu Yue’s 俞樾Qun Jing Ping Yi 群经平议 in modern format. Though the overall editing and emendation work were good, many textual errors still remain. This paper corrects a large sample of these errors through a comparison of various editions, including two previously un-researched manuscripts of Yu Yue. (Chinese language)

During the last century, researchers started to pay increasing attention to the ways in which Westerners study China in contrast to the ways in which the Chinese study China. The terms for distinguishing between these two fields are somewhat ambiguous in English, for they all fall under the broad category of “sinology”. They are much clearer in Chinese: guo xue 国学 “national studies,” is the term used by the Chinese to refer to the study of their own ancient culture; han xue 汉学, or xifang han xue 西方汉学, “Western sinology,” is the term used for the study of China’s culture by Western outsiders. Although the object of these two “ologies” is the same, they are often seen as distinct and even competing fields. The Chinese engage in national studies from a uniquely Chinese point of view, using their Chinese way of thinking; Westerners approach it from a Western point of view, using a distinctly Western way of thinking.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the origins of this dichotomy, and to evaluate the extent to which it represents historical and contemporary reality. The thesis of this paper is that, although the clear division between the Western and Chinese approaches to the study of China is based on historical fact, the line that once served to distinguish between the two has diminished and blurred to such an extent that it is no longer relevant.

In 2014, Beijing University’s Ru Zang Center published the first ever fully redacted version of Yu Yue’s Qun Jing Ping Yi in modern format. Though the overall editing and emendation work were very good, many textual errors still remain. The primary reason for such errors lies in the fact that the editors did not choose the best woodblock edition of Qun Jing Ping Yi to use as their master copy, upon which to base their own version and against which to check other versions. The other main reason for so many errors is that, besides the various woodblock versions of Qun Jing Ping Yi in existance, there is also a partial manuscript version by the original author that still exists, and although this is invaluable for just such editing and collation work, the Ru Zang editors chose not to use it. The result is that there are many textual errors in the Ru Zang version that could have easily been avoided. This paper analyzes a large sample of these errors. (Chinese language)

Qing Dynasty scholar Yu Yue 俞樾 composed assorted commentaries on the Confucian canon and compiled them into one large work entitled Qun Jing Ping Yi 群经平议. This paper takes a critical look at his commentaries on the central Confucian work Golden Mean 中庸, attempts to judge the textual validity of his unique interpretations. (Chinese language)