Negotiating the Confucian Dao-tong Tension: Mou Zongsan, Qian Mu, and the Genealogy of Their Methodologies

A. The Dao-tong Tension within the Metaphysical Stance

The Zhu–Chen debate reveals Zhu Xi’s metaphysical stance, which prioritizes the Dao’s transcendence. For Zhu, historical tradition is complex, and not everything within it results from full engagement with the Dao. Accordingly, discerning the Dao and Dao-tong requires a method that first transcends history. This commitment is clearly articulated in Zhu’s proposed reading sequence:

One must first study the Analects and the Mencius before turning to history. It is then as if a bright mirror is placed, from which neither beauty nor ugliness can escape. If one engages with history without having thoroughly studied the Analects, Mencius, Doctrine of the Mean, and Great Learning, one lacks a standard of judgment and is therefore easily misled.³

Within this paradigm, Zhu located the origin of Dao-tong in the ancient sages’ act of “succeeding Heaven and establishing the ultimate standard” (jitian liji 繼天立極), thereby identifying the Dao with transcendent Heaven. Taking this transcendent standard as his criterion, Zhu regarded the teachings transmitted among Yao 堯, Shun 舜, and Yu 禹—formulated in the “Sixteen-Character Transmission of the Mind” (shiliuzi xinchuan 十六字心傳)—as the earliest articulation of the Dao-tong: “The human-mind is precarious; the Dao-mind is subtle. Be refined, be single-minded, and sincerely hold fast to the Mean.”⁴ Therefore, only through prior apprehension of this transcendent Dao can the authentic Dao-tong be discerned.

Although Chen Liang explicitly opposed Zhu’s metaphysical stance, he did not intend to negate the Dao’s transcendence. Amidst the Tang–Song rise of sophisticated Buddhist metaphysics, Song Confucians felt compelled to construct a rival framework (Xu 2016, 40–41). It is precisely against this backdrop that Chen (2022, 295) criticized Zhu’s Dao as having become indistinguishable from Buddhist tenets: a “vacuous principle detached from human life and practical utility.” Consequently, Chen insisted that the genuine Dao and Dao-tong must be grounded in actual historical tradition.

Based on this historicist stance, Chen criticized Zhu for misconstruing both the Three Dynasties and the Han–Tang period. While the former were not free from bloodshed and power struggles, the latter were not devoid of merit; therefore, a serious examination of the historical tradition reveals that the Dao posited by Zhu could not have existed in a pure form—not only in the Han–Tang but even in the Three Dynasties themselves (Ding 2013). This critique suggests that Zhu’s conception of Dao-tong is ultimately a subjective fiction.

Further deconstructing this fabricated Dao-tong, Chen contended that it merely expressed the desire of a few to monopolize orthodoxy:

Whispering in pairs, as if passing secrets; drawing boundaries, as if erecting a private altar, they exclude the rest of the world. . . . In a world they perceive as entirely driven by profit and desire, they claim that the last remaining thread of Dao is preserved by them alone.⁵

Therefore, in Chen’s view, Zhu’s metaphysical stance caused the Dao-tong to deviate entirely from actual historical tradition, transforming it into an instrument for denigrating others and contesting orthodoxy.

As Cheng–Zhu Neo-Confucianism became the state ideology (Liu 1973), Zhu’s articulation of Dao-tong came to dominate the intellectual landscape. From the late Ming onward, however, Confucian thought underwent a paradigmatic shift. Intellectual currents such as Practical Learning (shixue 實學) and evidential scholarship (kaojuxue 考據學) increasingly echoed Chen’s historicist stance. Although Zhu himself emphasized practical utility, by the late Ming, Song–Ming Neo-Confucianism was widely perceived as detached from historical realities. This perception fueled a growing dissatisfaction that crystallized into the insistence that the Dao must be discussed in conjunction with concrete affairs and historical tradition, a concern central to Practical Learning during the Ming–Qing transition (He 1991).

Evidential scholarship posed an even more direct challenge to Zhu’s Dao-tong. While Zhu regarded the “Sixteen-Character Transmission of the Mind” as the authentic record of the Dao-tong (Zheng 2025), Yan Ruoqu 閻若璩 demonstrated that this passage was a Han-dynasty fabrication (Wang 2001). In this respect, evidential scholarship radicalized Chen’s critique by undermining the very textual foundation of Zhu’s narrative.

This philological turn was driven by the recognition that reliable texts are a prerequisite for apprehending the Confucian Dao (Yu 2012, 334–35). Yet a broader engagement with the classics led Ming–Qing scholars to recognize the intrinsic plurality of the Confucian tradition, in which different perspectives represent distinct articulations of the Dao. This insight motivated “the critique of the ‘orthodox transmission’ of Neo-Confucianism and the re-formation of the Confucian scholarly transmission” (Zhang 2006). Huang Zongxi 黃宗羲 offered a representative formulation:

The Dao is not the private possession of any single lineage. The vital paths of the sages are dispersed across diverse schools; the more arduous the search, the more authentic the discovery. Though some grasp it more fully than others, none can be said to stand entirely outside the Dao.⁶

From this standpoint, Zhu’s Dao-tong was rejected not on the basis of subjective intent but due to a structural limitation inherent in the metaphysical stance: its tendency to narrow the content of the Dao. Since the Dao is interpreted and inherited across plural perspectives, it can only be discerned through critical engagement with authentic texts and historical traditions. Accordingly, even if the “Sixteen-Character Transmission of the Mind” were genuine, Zhu’s Dao-tong would still represent only one perspective rather than the totality of the Dao or its transmission.

Unlike Chen Liang and most Ming–Qing Confucians, who did not intend to reject the Dao’s transcendence, Qian Mu radicalized the Dao-tong tension. In his view, any commitment to transcendence renders Dao-tong a subjective construct detached from authentic historical tradition. This position is most clearly articulated through his critique of so-called “Unconventional Confucians” (biechu zhi ru 別出之儒).

Qian (2011a, 82) introduced “Unconventional Confucians” to describe figures who pride themselves on being the rightful successor to the Dao. What unites such thinkers is a metaphysical stance that elevates “one or two texts, or even one or two phrases” into an unquestionable, all-encompassing principle (Qian 2011a, 77). Zhu Xi (2011, 16) claimed that Yao’s injunction to “sincerely hold fast to the Mean” was “ultimate and complete,” and Wang Yangming’s (2015, 95) assertion that “the extension of innate knowledge” (zhi liangzhi 致良知) exhausted the entirety of learning, exemplify this tendency. Accordingly, Qian (2011a, 74, 77) characterized Wang as “the pinnacle among Unconventional Confucians” and Zhu as pursuing a similar project through encyclopedic synthesis. By revisiting historical Dao-tong debates, Qian argued that the metaphysical stance consistently constructs a transcendent Dao from minimal textual evidence, dismissing all that failed to conform to this Dao as contingent and insignificant. Clearly, this strategy inevitably neglects vast portions of classical records and factual realities. A Dao-tong grounded in transcendence thus becomes isolated, fragile, and ultimately subjective, deviating from historical tradition (Qian 2011a, 83).

From the Zhu–Chen debate onward, Zhu Xi’s metaphysical stance has faced sustained criticism. These critiques collectively expose a structural tension inherent in Dao-tong as formulated within a metaphysical stance: once the Dao’s transcendence is prioritized, the Tong cannot but drift away from historical reality, degenerating into a subjective fiction. Under these circumstances, if Mou Zongsan is to maintain a metaphysical stance, he must confront this challenge by articulating a metaphysical method capable of mediating the Dao-tong tension from within that stance.

B. Mou’s Metaphysical Method

To mediate the Dao-tong tension from within a metaphysical stance, Mou Zongsan argues that Dao-tong must be grounded in a philosophy of history. He locates the enduring significance of the Zhu–Chen debate precisely in its implicit demand for such a philosophy (Mou 2003e, 245). Accordingly, the Dao-tong problem is transformed into a historico-philosophical question concerning the possibility of history—one that, in the modern context, must account not only for the possibility of Chinese history, but also for the plurality of human historical traditions.

Zhu Xi confronted a structurally similar situation. On the one hand, Chen Liang criticized his metaphysical stance for severing Dao-tong from authentic history; on the other, Zhu was compelled to distinguish Confucianism from Buddhism. Yet Zhu showed little interest in developing a philosophy of history, instead adopting a dismissive attitude toward historical tradition. His critique of Chen is emblematic: “Reading history is like watching people brawl; what is there to see in a brawl? Chen has been led astray by history his entire life.”⁷ For Zhu, the exclusion of historical traditions that failed to conform to the Dao was not a problem to be resolved but the necessary consequence of properly engaging with the Dao. This position was grounded in Zhu’s distinction between the Dao-mind (daoxin 道心), which fully apprehends the transcendent Dao, and the human-mind (renxin 人心), which does not (Zhu 2002, 1586). On this basis, history was divided into traditions aligned with the Dao and those that deviated from it, with the latter being categorically excluded from the Dao-tong. Zhu thus stated that one of the primary functions of the Dao-tong is to continue “the teaching transmitted among the sages, thereby judging subsequent history and maintaining its rectitude.”⁸

Meanwhile, although Zhu acknowledged that even the Three Dynasties were marked by bloodshed and power struggles, he argued that the Han–Tang period should be excluded from the Dao-tong because it lacked the proper learning of the Dao (Zhao 2018, 343-45). In other words, if full engagement with the Dao yields practical results, those benefits become part of the Dao-tong. Where correct cognition of the Dao failed to produce outward realization, doctrinal transmission alone still constituted Dao-tong, retaining moral legitimacy despite its fragility.

Regarding the relationship between Confucianism and Buddhism, although Zhu absorbed certain Buddhist insights (Lai 2017, 78-127), he maintained the Confucian Dao as the sole criterion, asserting that the two were not parallel disciplines but rather right versus wrong (Li 2007). Consequently, just as the Han–Tang period was excluded from the Dao-tong, the rejection of the Buddhist tradition was, for Zhu, entirely justified.

While Mou Zongsan affirms Zhu’s metaphysical stance, he rejects Zhu’s way of mediating the Dao-tong tension. Accordingly, although Mou emphasizes that the primary function of Dao-tong is to “affirm the value of moral religion and safeguard the essence of humanity opened by Confucius and Mencius,” he further insists on the need to “actualize history from the perspective of dynamic elevation and transformation.”⁹ This claim effectively calls for a philosophy of history.

Such historico-philosophical awareness had already emerged in the Ming–Qing period, most notably in the work of Wang Fuzhi 王夫之. Wang argued that historical phenomena cannot be evaluated in isolation but must be understood through their complex interrelations. His famous remark—“the Qin abolished the feudal lords out of a desire to privatize the realm, yet Heaven utilized this private motive to realize a greater public good”¹⁰—illustrates this view. Although the Qin rulers did not consciously practice the Dao, their institutional reforms nonetheless created conditions conducive to later moral and political development (Han 2021). The importance of Wang’s position lies less in the accuracy of his historical verdict than in his attempt to situate historical realities within a process through which the Dao gradually manifests its fulfillment, thereby examining how particular realities may contribute—directly or indirectly—to this realization.

Wang, however, did not carry this position through consistently, as evidenced by his vehement critiques of Buddhism, Daoism, and the Yangming School of Mind (Cheng 2022, 58–59). Nonetheless, Mou Zongsan (2018c, 182–85), deeply appreciative of the historico-philosophical consciousness articulated in Wang’s work, systematically develops it within his own philosophy of history. This development constitutes Mou’s metaphysical method for mediating the tension between the singular, transcendent Dao and historical traditions in both China and the broader human world.

In Mou’s philosophy of history, historical tradition is the arena in which the transcendent Dao progressively realizes itself under contingent conditions. Because human cognition and practice are necessarily limited, the realization of the Dao proceeds neither instantaneously nor linearly but through a tortuous, step-by-step process (Mou 2003c, 13; 2003d, 463). Accordingly, Mou’s notion of historical judgment is not a static moral verdict that simply classifies events as conforming to or deviating from the Dao. Rather, it situates particular historical phenomena within the overall process of the Dao’s gradual fulfillment, asking how—and in what sense—they contribute to this process. Even actions motivated by evil or contingency may, by exposing their own limitations or generating negative lessons, indirectly facilitate later apprehension and realization of the Dao. Thus, while the Dao remains transcendent, Dao-tong need not be severed from actual historical tradition; instead, it is a process that necessarily incorporates—and continuously overcomes—contingency and even evil, thereby realizing a higher degree of the Good through a winding path (Mou 2018b, 193–94).

Compared with Zhu Xi, a further advance in Mou’s project lies in his sustained engagement with the tension between the singular, transcendent Dao and the plurality of historical traditions. In the modern context, the forceful elevation of Confucianism above other traditions—as exemplified by Zhu—became increasingly untenable. In this sense, Mou’s philosophy of history also entails recognizing that different peoples, situated in distinct historical contexts, employ different modes to apprehend and practice the Dao, thereby forming their unique historical traditions (Mou 2003b, 318-22). Thus, while the constant Dao (changdao 常道) is singular and transcendent, its historical realization takes differentiated forms—for instance, Confucian learning of mind and nature in China and Christianity in the West (Mou 2018a, 62). Dao-tong accordingly integrates universality with historical particularity (Li 1994).

Although Mou (2003f, 469-71) regards Confucianism as the “perfect teaching” (yuan jiao 圓教) and Christianity as a “detached teaching” (li jiao 離教), he does not advocate the exclusion of Christianity. Rather, Mou (2018a, 69-71) maintains that Confucianism and Christianity should mutually learn from one another so as to promote the ongoing refinement of their respective traditions. Thus, by conceiving the plurality of human historical traditions as processes converging toward a common ultimate destination, Mou succeeds in preserving the Dao’s transcendence while rooting the Dao-tong in actual and complex human history.

While Mou’s classification of Confucianism and Christianity may invite further debate, he nevertheless succeeds, to a considerable extent, in alleviating the Dao-tong tension inherent in the metaphysical stance by reframing it as a historico-philosophical inquiry into the possibility of history itself. Because historical practice is inevitably conditioned by contingency and finitude, historical traditions necessarily encompass complex realities, including the coexistence of good and evil. These elements are not to be purged from Dao-tong but constitute the very medium through which the transcendent Dao realizes itself in history. Moreover, the plurality of historical traditions should not be understood statically, but as a dynamic process in which diverse traditions converge toward a shared ultimate orientation through dialogue and mutual transformation. By grounding Dao-tong in a philosophy of history oriented toward the transcendent Dao, Mou preserves the Dao’s singularity while anchoring Dao-tong in concrete and plural historical realities, thereby advancing a distinctive metaphysical method for mediating the Dao-tong tension.

A. The Dao-tong Tension within the Historicist Stance

Although Chen Liang insists that the Dao and Dao-tong must be discovered within concrete historical traditions, he does not deny the Dao’s transcendence (Zhang 2012). As Mou Zongsan (2018b, 191) observes, the Zhu–Chen debate concerns primarily the evaluation of the Han–Tang period; even Chen would not claim that the tyrannical Qin rulers engaged with the Dao. In this sense, Zhu and Chen share a commitment to an absolute standard transcending history. Their disagreement lies not in whether such a standard exists but in how it is to be apprehended:

Zhu Xi maintains that the Dao is directly articulated in authoritative texts. As he states, “The Six Classics are writings from before the Three Dynasties; they once passed through the sages and are entirely expressions of Heavenly Principle.”¹² While Zhu thus grounds the cognition of the Dao in specific canonical texts, broader historical traditions serve merely as objects to be judged by this transcendent criterion rather than as reliable epistemic sources for discerning the Dao.

Chen, conversely, rejects this approach. He argues that the Dao is not simply preserved in textual records but manifests through enduring practical efficacy, a feature he regards as distinguishing Confucianism from Buddhism (Chen 2022, 294–95). On this basis, Chen defends the Han–Tang period, emphasizing its sustained capacity to support human life and social order:

For over fifteen hundred years, Heaven and Earth themselves have endured through makeshift repairs and provisional measures, and the human spirit has likewise struggled on through piecemeal efforts from day to day. Yet how could the myriad things have flourished, and how could the Dao have persisted? Thus, I believe that the rulers of Han–Tang were by no means lacking in expansive capacity and were therefore able to maintain their states alongside Heaven and Earth, and the people relied on them for sustenance.¹³

For Chen, such public and enduring utility constitutes decisive evidence that the Han–Tang embodied the Dao. Consequently, the cognition of the Dao and Dao-tong is grounded not only in textual authority but also in concrete historical achievements.

Chen’s position, however, met with resolute opposition from Zhu Xi. Zhu (2002, 1583) argued that if the Han–Tang rulers were credited with engaging with the Dao merely because they established enduring states, this would reduce moral judgment to a calculus of success and failure. Such achievements, Zhu warned, could arise contingently from “feigning benevolence and righteousness to serve private interests” (假仁借義以行其私). For this reason, Zhu insisted that any historical utility must be assessed against a transcendent standard so as to determine whether it genuinely manifested the Dao or merely resulted from accidental factors or self-interested motivations. In this respect, Zhu’s critique amounts to a rejection of Chen’s historicism in favor of a metaphysical stance.

Although employing different terminology, Mou Zongsan essentially continues Zhu’s line of critique. Mou (2003e, 266–67) emphasizes that actions driven by instinct or intuition may contingently yield public benefits. Without “self-awareness of moral reason,” such benefits may merely spring from desires like lust, the pursuit of fame, and the craving for power. While these desires, coupled with keen intuition, great intelligence, and strong executive capacity, could accidentally produce enduring public utilities, they remain fundamentally distinct from the conscious practice of the Dao. For Mou, Chen’s approach collapses this distinction by equating accidental outcomes with principled moral action, thereby undermining the universality and transcendence of the Dao.

Admittedly, Chen could further argue that the practical utilities of the Han–Tang period were not merely accidental. However, the critiques advanced by Zhu and Mou expose a broader structural problem inherent in a historicist stance. Historical traditions are intrinsically complex and permeated by contingency. If the Dao and Dao-tong are identified with concrete historical achievements, contingent phenomena risk being mistaken for necessary manifestations of the Dao. This not only weakens the Dao’s universality but also erodes its normative authority over history. Zhu (2002, 1589–92) thus warned that Chen’s conception of Dao-tong could place selfish and unscrupulous behavior on the same footing as sagely action, thereby dissolving the distinction between right and wrong and encouraging moral license. Mou similarly criticized Chen’s view for resulting in the absence of a coherent normative framework and ultimately in moral confusion:

In seeking to appraise history, the transcendent existence was not comprehended, thereby precluding the establishment of a fundamental normative principle. Consequently, it led to an absence of moral clarity—or at best, to fragmented and incoherent judgments that are inverted and wide of the mark.¹⁴

Taken together, these critiques articulate the Dao-tong tension internal to the historicist stance: prioritizing the non-deviation of Tong from historical tradition risks collapsing universal principle into historical relativity. For Confucian thinkers such as Zhu and Mou, this relativization threatens the very possibility of moral knowledge and practice. Consequently, if Qian Mu is to maintain a historicist stance, he must respond to these objections by articulating a historicist method capable of mediating the Dao-tong tension from within that stance.

B. Qian’s Historicist Method

The historicist stance bears an intrinsic affinity with the plurality of historical traditions. Pushing this logic further, Qian Mu ultimately rejected the Dao’s transcendence, thereby resolving the Dao-tong tension by fully pluralizing it. This radical move, however, required philosophical justification in light of the critiques advanced by Zhu Xi and Mou Zongsan. It was under these conditions that Qian introduced the concept of “cultural life,” which became central to his reinterpretation of the historicist method.

Although Chen Liang, several Ming–Qing Confucians, and Qian can all be located within the historicist stance, their methodological commitments differ significantly. Chen and several Ming–Qing Confucians did not reject the Dao’s transcendence. Rather, they sought to preserve it while grounding Dao-tong in historical reality—a strategy that, as Qian’s later development suggests, left unresolved issues.

Chen’s method rests on a distinction between epistemology and ontology. Epistemologically, he holds that the Dao is apprehended through its practical efficacy; ontologically, however, he refuses to identify the Dao with historical tradition. On this basis, Chen emphasizes graded differences in public utility. Although both the Three Dynasties and the Han–Tang period engaged with the Dao, he insists that “the Three Dynasties fulfilled it to the utmost, whereas the Han –Tang did not” (三代做得盡者也, 漢唐做不到盡者也) (Chen 2022, 297). Degrees of utility thus correspond to degrees of realization of the Dao: rigorous apprehension yields extensive and enduring benefits, whereas limited engagement produces only partial effects. The Han–Tang therefore represent deficiency rather than failure in relation to the Dao. For this reason, characterizing Chen’s position as a “Utilitarian Ethic of End Results” (Tillman 1982, 134) is problematic, as Chen does not equate the essence of the Dao with practical benefits. Instead, while one can recognize the Dao through its effects, it is the Dao itself that dictates the magnitude of these effects. Therefore, practical utility functions not as an ontological definition of the Dao but rather as an epistemological criterion for assessing its apprehension and realization. In this way, Chen attempts to preserve the Dao’s transcendence while drawing Dao-tong closer to historical tradition.

Nevertheless, Chen’s method remains vulnerable on two fronts. First, it risks excluding historical realities that do not readily exhibit practical utility, thereby detaching Dao-tong from the full complexity of historical tradition—ironically mirroring Zhu Xi’s exclusion of the Han–Tang period. Second, and more fundamentally, it fails to resolve the objection raised by Zhu and Mou: practical outcomes may arise contingently. If so, contingent success may be conflated with universal principle. Thus, even without rejecting transcendence in intention, Chen’s method risks undermining it in practice.

Ming–Qing Confucians generally developed new historicist methods to mediate the Dao-tong tension, with Huang Zongxi and Wang Fuzhi as representative figures. Compared with Chen, both sought to reconcile this tension by identifying the Dao’s infinitude with the infinite development of history. Huang articulated this view primarily through intellectual history. Using the metaphor of rivers flowing into the sea, he argued that the plurality of scholarly discourses manifests the inexhaustibility of the Dao itself. On this account, Dao-tong can be understood as the ongoing disclosure of the Dao’s infinite dimensions within history:

The diversity of learning precisely reveals the inexhaustibility of the Dao. Even among the disciples of the Sage, Zeng and Shang, or You and Xia, were never unified. . . . The Dao is like the sea: the Yangtze, the Huai, the Yellow, the Han, the Jing and Wei, and even down to the smallest rivulets, all wind toward it. Though they flow separately, they become one upon reaching the sea.¹⁵

Wang Fuzhi, by contrast, provided a more systematic ontological formulation. By asserting that “under heaven, there are only concrete objects” (tianxia weiqi 天下惟器; Wang 2011a, 1027) and that “the Dao is present in the full realization of concrete objects” (jin qi ze Dao zai qizhong yi 盡器則道在其中矣; Wang 2011c, 427), Wang collapsed the distinction between the Dao and history, treating them as two perspectives on a single existence. The Dao thus becomes the immanent principle of historical process itself—a dynamic movement through which concrete realities continually realize their normative ground (Tian 2020, 591).

Because Huang and Wang treated the Dao’s infinitude and history’s infinite development as two aspects of the same reality, they maintained that historicism need not undermine transcendence. Yet this method introduces new difficulties. Defining the Dao primarily in terms of infinitude renders its transcendence merely formal. Without a substantive criterion, all elements of historical tradition—including Buddhism and Daoism—would be subsumed under the Dao, an implication unacceptable to Confucians. Moreover, historical tradition is often rife with contradictions. If these contradictory elements were all grounded in the Dao, the Dao itself would become internally contradictory, which is likewise untenable.

In practice, both thinkers attempted to specify the Dao’s substantive content, but this move inevitably reintroduced exclusion. Huang (2012b, 193) identified Chen Xianzhang 陳獻章 (1428–1500), Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529), and Liu Zongzhou 劉宗周 (1578–1645) as representing the orthodoxy of Ming Confucianism. Moreover, he even implicitly privileged Yangming Learning as Confucian orthodoxy (Zhang 2017). Wang Fuzhi, for his part, asserted that “Wang Yangming’s learning, transmitted first to Wang Ji and then to Li Zhi, established a teaching without restraint, through which shame and moral integrity were lost, banditry arose, and China fell into ruin.”¹⁶ Contrary to Huang’s elevation of Yangming Learning, Wang thus vehemently rejected it. Once this is the case, however, how do their practices differ from Zhu Xi’s exclusion of the Han–Tang period?

The limitations of the Huang–Wang historicist methods created the theoretical space for Qian Mu to reject the Dao’s transcendence. Yet this move confronted him with two related challenges: how to avoid relativism, and how to account for the continuity and coherence of historical tradition. Since history consists of past persons, events, and objects, it constitutes a meaningful Dao-tong only insofar as these elements are integrated into an ordered whole. If the Dao lacks transcendence, what force can permeate and unify historical reality without reducing it to a mere assemblage of fragments? Qian’s answer to both challenges centers on the concept of “cultural life.”

Qian (2011c, 977) maintains that a culture’s distinctive historical tradition determines its unique identity and endows it with life and spirit. The task of historiography lies precisely in uncovering this “cultural life”:

Historiography is a study of life. . . . It seeks to discern both enduring spirit and constant renewal. This is where the highest meaning and value of humanity reside.¹⁷

This “enduring spirit,” namely “cultural life,” functions analogously to the self-identity of an individual: it grounds self-recognition and distinguishes self from other. Unlike individual life, however, “cultural life” can persist indefinitely through intergenerational transmission (Qian 2011d, 11–12). As such, the Dao-tong is understood as the endless historical process through which “cultural life” continually enriches its material and spiritual dimensions, encompassing economy, politics, science, religion, morality, literature, and art (Qian 2011e, 32).

However, Qian’s negation of the Dao’s transcendence inevitably invites the charge of relativism: if good and evil were merely relative, the possibility of moral knowledge and practice would collapse.

Qian’s response does not lie in restoring a transcendent foundation but in reinterpreting the source of morality itself. This move is inseparable from Qian’s historicist method, which rejects metaphysical grounding and insists that normativity be understood within historical traditions. He therefore does not deny morality but relocates its foundation from transcendence to history. This point becomes clear when contrasted with Mou Zongsan’s notion of “cultural life.” While some scholars have noted a similarity between Mou’s concept and Qian’s own (Li 1994; Zheng 2001, 183), their underlying ontologies diverge: Mou understands “cultural life” as the manifestation of the transcendent Dao and as the ontological source of humanity and the universe (Mou 2003b, 296–97). By contrast, Qian’s “cultural life” designates the material, social, and spiritual content of a historical tradition, without any necessary reference to transcendence (Qian 2011e, 7–9). This contrast clarifies that Qian’s moral horizon is internal to history rather than grounded in a metaphysical realm.

In this sense, morality does not originate in a realm beyond history; it is the core of a “cultural life” (Yao 2023, 45). A “cultural life” is not a metaphysical entity, but a historically formed tradition shaped by concrete conditions such as environment and modes of living (Qian 2011f, 2). Consequently, while moral orientations may differ across cultures, within any given “cultural life” they are neither arbitrary nor indeterminate. In other words, the stability of morality derives not from a transcendent Dao, but from the enduring continuity of a living cultural tradition itself.

Within this framework, a “cultural life,” insofar as it is alive, will inevitably experience pathological states that hinder its healthy growth. Evil is therefore analogous to illness, which is unavoidable in any living organism (Qian 2011b, 23). What matters is not the denial of such experiences, but the capacity to overcome them and learn from them so as to restore and sustain health. Dao-tong is thus not a purified record free of moral failure but the historical process through which a “cultural life” confronts, endures, and continually overcomes its own forms of moral disorder, thereby sustaining its moral vitality.

It is in this sense that “cultural life” becomes the cornerstone of Qian Mu’s historicist method. By rejecting transcendence while affirming a constant value orientation toward healthy growth, Qian redefines Dao-tong as a historical process through which a “cultural life” sustains itself by continually overcoming its pathologies. At the same time, Qian grounds the source of morality in the enduring continuity of a living “cultural life” rather than in any transcendent existence; it is precisely this “cultural life” that secures both the possibility and the necessity of moral knowledge and practice. In this way, Qian succeeds in refining the historicist method through the concept of cultural life.