From Natural Reason to Civilized Education: An Investigation into the History of English Translations of gewu zhizhi in Cheng-Zhu Confucianism

Gewu zhizhi is a core concept of Cheng-Zhu Confucian theory for cultivating one’s personality; however, its interpretation has sparked controversy for centuries. This paper provides a chronological analysis of English translations of this Chinese concept within the context of the Neo-Confucian system, examining the interpretation paradigms from a conceptual historical perspective. The study reveals that the early English translations, influenced by the Latin translations of Catholic Jesuits and the natural reason theory of scholastic philosophy, viewed gewu zhizhi as a discussion on human cognitive understanding, considering it as the starting point for converting Chinese people to Christianity. In the nineteenth century, British Protestant missionary-sinologists, influenced by empiricist epistemology and Calvinist theology, interpreted this concept as the illusion of acquiring all empirical knowledge, using it as evidence of the Chinese people’s deviation from God. In the early twentieth century, the Chinese translators Gu Hongming and Lin Yutang transformed this concept into a humanistic cultural critique targeting the problems of modern industrial society. By analyzing the changes in English translations of this significant concept in Cheng-Zhu Confucianism, this paper aims to illustrate the complexities of the historical ideological consciousness embedded in the Western translation of Confucian thought.