Si̍t-chûn Movement

Si̍t-chûn Movement, inasmuch as the Kyoto School, Neo-Confucianism and other prominent philosophical movements in the early-twentieth-century East Asia, is a significant philosophical movement during the Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan, in which the intellectuals in the 1920s formulated their reflections on the Taiwanese community through the western values and thoughts and wedged against the colonial domination and imperial assimilation. Si̍t-chûn Movement was intensely bond with political and cultural counter-imperialism, involving intellectuals e.g. Lin Mosei(zh:林茂生), Hung Yao-hsün(zh:洪耀勳), Wen Kwei Liao(zh:廖文奎), Mingdian Liu(zh:劉明電), Shao-Hsing Chen(zh:陳紹馨), Lin Qiu-wu(zh:林秋悟), Hsiang-yu Su(zh:蘇薌雨), Shenqie Zhang(zh:張深切), Chin-sui Hwang(zh:黃金穗), Shoki Coe(zh:黃彰輝), Isshū Yō(zh:楊杏庭), C K Wu(吳 振坤), and so forth. 'At the begin,' according to the Taiwanese cultural sociologist Ren-yi Liao (廖 仁義)'s 1988 grounding formulation, 'Taiwanese Philosophy has been a civil intellectual movement against domination, rather than an academic form of conception.' 'Si̍t-chûn Movement', however, has yet ratified and systemically studied until 2014.

'Si̍t-chûn' (實存) is a Taiwanese phonic understanding from the widely discussed concept 'Jitsuzon'(実存; じつぞん) in the 1930s Japanese intellectual circles; translated from 'Existenz' by Kyoto School philosopher Kuki Shūzō(ja:九鬼周造), this concept originated from the German Philosophy and variously adopted on the dialectics of self and the others, of master and serfdom, and sovereign beings 'Dasein'. Comparing to 'de:Existenzphilosophie', 'fr:L'existentialisme', 'Existentialism', and 'Jitsuzon', 'Si̍t-chûn' has its own intellectual and cultural understanding on the being in pursuit of counter-domination resistance and justice from its historical sediments as fragments of/f empires. This may somehow refer to Iris Marion Young's justice theory.

Theoretical Formulation
Si̍t-chûn Movement is an intellectual movement on practice, which intensely bond with counter-domination during the Japan colonial rule. Such a cultural and societal movement came along with the political defeat in pursuit of parliamentary autonomy Petition Movement for the Establishment of a Taiwanese Parliament(zh: 臺灣議會設置請願運動)) led by the Taiwanese bourgeois Chiang Wei-shui(zh:蔣渭水), Lin Hsien-tang(zh:林獻堂) and other activists against the colonial regulation 'Law No. 63'(zh:六三法). In 1920s, the Taiwanese Cultural Association(zh:台灣文化協會) galvanized the self-identification from the cultural and societal perspectives, through public lectures, publications, playlets and summer schools, in which intellectuals e.g. Lin Mosei(zh:林茂生), Shao-Hsing Chen(zh:陳紹馨), Lin Qiu-wu(zh:林秋悟) addressed in the public sphere; Lin Qiu-wu(zh:林秋悟) and Isshū Yō(zh:楊杏庭) were involved with student movements, and even Shenqie Zhang(zh:張深切) and Hsiang-yu Su(zh:蘇薌雨) were enlisted to militia resistance. As the Kyoto School, there lies with intellectual similarity yet different understanding on Taiwan philosophical topics from Si̍t-chûn Movement philosophers.

Existence and Truth
Zeng Tianzong(zh:曾天從)'s 'the Principles on Truth' (真理原理論, 1937) is an enquiry of truth from phenomenological viewing. Referring to Shino Yoshinobu(志野好伸). First, he critiqued on anthropocentrism and relativism for their truth is varied with milieu; and second, he differentiated truths on 'Keisō'(形相) and 'Rinen' (理念); the former meant form and the later meant context, which could be understood by pure logic and existence; at last, he rendered that 'Keisō' and 'Rinen' could be overcoming through 'absolute-nothingness' (絕對無) and 'absolute-being' (絕對存有). The first two promulgations were originated from Husserlian Phenomenology and the last was inherited from the Kyoto School. Comparing to Zeng Tianzong(zh:曾天從)'s disanthropocentrism, his intellectual companion Hung Yao-hsün(zh:洪耀勳)'s 'Existence and Truth' (存在與真理, 1937) elaborated further on the being and becoming in the milieu, for formulating the Taiwanese community. The Dasein of Taiwanese could be also taken into Hung Yao-hsün(zh:洪耀勳)'s review 'View on Fūdo' (風土文化觀) on Tetsuro Watsuji(ja:和辻哲郎) and Hegelian dialectics and phenomenology. Rwei-ren Wu(zh:吳叡人) furtherly suggests that Hung Yao-hsün(zh:洪耀勳) was to formulate a Formosan Phenomenology of Spirit.

Education and Democracy
British philosopher Bertrand Russell and American philosopher John Dewey visited Asia respectively in 1920/21 and whirlwinded with the intellectual circles. In 1924, Lin Mosei(zh:林茂生) issued a series of 'Social Evolution and School Education' (社會之進化及學校教育) and analyzed philosophy of education from the Oriental perspective: the purpose of education is to improve human civilization and the progress underlies with intellectual reinvigoration and cultural accumulation; the former is a knowledge and thought quest beyond material life and distinguishes humans from beasts, and it also infers to a well-being society without falls. The assimilation of Japanese Empire was just the opposite: imperial ideology haunted with cultural discrimination and militarism obsession. Lin Mosei(zh:林茂生)'s dissertation 'Public Education in Formosa under the Japanese Administration - A Historical and Analytical Study of the Development and the Cultural Problems' (1929) elaborated from his supervisor John Dewey's horizon on education, and critique the overall public education in Taiwan under the Japanese colonial rule which suppressed the authentic language and cultural development and therefore led to discrimination. Taiwanese epistemologist Hsi-Heng Cheng(鄭喜恆) noted that 'Lin Mosei(zh:林茂生)'s critique on Japanese colonial rule was due to a universal value and democracy, rather than Taiwanese ethnic-nationalism sentiment.'.

Individual and the Community
Wen Kwei Liao(zh:廖文奎)'s magnum opus 'Individual and the Community' (1933) articulated that 'how each one as an individual member is determined by his community and how he as an intellectual leader reacts upon it. That the individual is essentially a product of the community, and yet may by chance become a guide of it'. Wen Kwei Liao(zh:廖文奎) referred the human conduct to three factors: 'spontaneous' (instinct and drive), 'regulative' (familial and social), and 'adaptive' (conscience, sense and reflection). When an individual's inner conscience goes against the outer social domination as usual, it follows with conscience. Taiwanese epistemologist Cheng-Hung Tsai (蔡政宏) ascribes Wen Kwei Liao(zh:廖文奎)'s moral theorem to moral institutionalism which exists with irreducible moral belief. Shao-Hsing Chen(zh:陳紹馨)'s formulation on the relation of individual and society was particularly on civil society formation from Adam Ferguson and G.W.F. Hegel. His '黑格爾市民社會論' (Hegel's Theorem on Civil Society, 1936) noted that civil society is an intermediate between family and the State, which is the center of all economic activities; however, conflicts and inequalities in the civil society seems inevitable due to different needs and desires of each member. Although Shao-Hsing Chen(zh:陳紹馨) seemingly agreed with Hegelian idea that the state must be the intermediator reconciling conflicts and injustices, but also reckoned on John Locke's critique on absolute monarchy(which may implied the flaw of the Japanese imperialism and militantism). From Shao-Hsing Chen(zh:陳紹馨) and Wen Kwei Liao(zh:廖文奎)'s formulation, a Taiwanese community independent of empires seemed intellectually expected, but failed with the postwar retrocession of Chiang Kai-shek authoritarian regime, that Wen Kwei Liao(zh:廖文奎) exiled to Hong Kong in the 1940s and Shao-Hsing Chen(zh:陳紹馨) flew to the US and became a sociologist on population after his doctorate in Princeton.

Concurrence with the Kyoto School and the Neo-Confucianism
Some scholars of Si̍t-chûn Movement was apostles of the Kyoto School. Fa-Yu Cheng(zh:鄭發育) studied under Nishida Kitarō(ja:西田幾多郎), and Chin-sui Hwang(zh:黃金穗) published 'On Dailiness – A Phenomenological Suggestion' (日常性について―現象學的試論) under the supervision of Tanabe Hajime(ja:田邊元). In 1928, Taihoku Imperial University was established with the Department of Literature and Politics, constituted of Risaku Mutal(ja:務台理作), Okano Ryuziro(ja:岡野留次郎), Awano Yasutaro(ja:淡野安太郎), Sera Hisao(ja:世良壽男) and other intellectual pedigrees of the Kyoto School. Hung Yao-hsün(zh:洪耀勳) enrolled his professorship in Taihoku at that time and furtherly elaborated his conception from the Kyoto School. Kyoto Philosopher Masakatsu Fujita(ja:藤田正勝) takes Hung Yao-hsün(zh:洪耀勳)'s philosophical significance on not merely an inheritance from Tanabe Hajime(ja:田邊元)'s 'species' (種) as medium but rather an existence in lifeworld, and thus he attempted to reformulate a Taiwanese community on its own historical and social formulation.

Comparing to Neo-Confucianism, Sinologist Chong-Xiu Huang (黃崇修) considered Lin Mosei(zh:林茂生) to be advanced on Yangmingism studies for his comparing with Immanuel Kant, earlier than the Neo-Confucianism scholars in China e.g. Xiong Shili(zh:熊十力), Liang Shuming(zh:梁漱民)), Yifu Ma(zh:馬一浮), Carsun Chang(zh:張君勱), Feng Youlan(zh:馮友蘭).

Lin Mosei(zh:林茂生)'s understanding on Yangmingism, aside from Japan and China, on one hand due to his childhood education in Mandarin diverged from Meiji sinologists Inoue Tetsujirō(ja:井上哲次郎) and Kanie Yoshimaru(ja:蟹江義丸)'s interpretation from the Enlightenment perspective, on the other contemplated a more systemic study on Kant and Descartes comparison on conscience of Yangmingism 'liangzhi' than his Chinese contemporaries e.g. Liang Qichao(zh:梁啟超). Taiwanese philosophical significance which came along with particular historical experiences from the Qing magistrate to the Japanese colonial, embodied onto Lin Mosei(zh:林茂生) and other Taiwanese philosophers' thoughtsystem.

Sino-Japan War and the Postwar Following
Si̍t-chûn Movement had hibernated from the outbreak of Sino-Japan War in 1937 accelerated the 'Japanization'(zh:皇民化運動) assimilation to the postwar retrocession expectation from the Taiwanese civil society. Public engagement in the public sphere from Lin Mosei(zh:林茂生)'s 'Mingpao' (民報), Chin-sui Hwang(zh:黃金穗)'s 'Hsin-hsin' (新新), Wen Kwei Liao(zh:廖文奎) and his brother Wen-yi Liao(zh:廖文毅)'s 'Avant-garde' (前鋒), Hung Yao-hsün(zh:洪耀勳) and Shenqie Zhang(zh:張深切)'s 'New Taiwan' (新台灣) in Beijing. was temporarily revival until the February 28 Incident.

Most of Si̍t-chûn philosophers suffered for the wartime and the suppression. A philosopher of Anthropology Ming-kun Kuo(zh:郭明昆) and his family demised during the wartime because their cargoship from Kobe back to Taiwan was hit by an American submarine near the East China Sea. Lin Mosei(zh:林茂生) was disappeared and murdered by the espionage during February 28 Incident. Dong-fang Chang(zh:張冬芳) was mentally ill due to the White Terror prosecution. Wen Kwei Liao(zh:廖文奎), C K Wu(吳 振坤), Isshū Yō(zh:楊杏庭), Ai Chih Tsai(zh:蔡愛智), Su-Qing Lin(zh:林素琴), Shoki Coe left Taiwan. Shenqie Zhang(zh:張深切)'s 'Studies on Confucianism'(孔子哲學評論) (1954) was banned and his manuscript 'Studies on Laoziism'(老子哲學評論) was also unable to publish.

Ren-yi Liao articulated that during the postwar White Terror, Taiwanese Philosophy was substituted by exogenesis Chinese Philosophy as a whole; and considered that Philosophy in Taiwan would be 'rootless' if its academic disciplines drifted apart from its position.' The 1996 Founding Proclamation of Taiwan Philosophical Association pinned on 'a civic movement on academic discourse of Taiwanese Philosophy in a various way of study and research.'. The interdisciplinary project on Taiwanese Philosophy held by Academia Sinica since 2017 has been unearthing the philosophical literature of pre-wartime Si̍t-chûn Movement and hence developed contemporary dialogues with intellectualism crisis.