The Medical Confucianism of Lim Boon Keng: A Reconstruction

The philosophical thought of the ‘Grand Old Man’ of Singapore, LIM Boon Keng (1869–1957), is often overlooked for his multifarious—sometimes seemingly contrary—roles: social reformer, progressive firebrand, and conservative leader; community doctor, international medical researcher, and public health figure; Qing official, Overseas Chinese reformist, or revolutionary; Legislative Council Unofficial, anti-colonial critic, and (alleged) Japanese-Imperial collaborator—to name just a few. In this talk, I take up TU Weiming’s suggestion a decade ago that “it is time to reexamine Lim Boon Keng’s illumination of Confucianism a century ago” and I will also argue against Lim’s own humble insistence that he was “philosophically incompeten[t],” during his 1916 Presidential Address to the Straits Philosophical Society.

To do this, I will motivate and reconstruct Lim’s novel reinterpretation of Confucian philosophy on the basis of his medical training. Specifically, I reconstruct his prescription to the Straits Chinese for a hybridised culture as well for purging the superstitions that he thought to have infected both source cultures of Britain and China: Qing rule was seen by Lim as pathologically compromised and in need of the treatment offered ultimately by SUN Yat-sen and British expansionism seen as lacking adequate moral guidance. Situating Lim’s philosophical efforts within the political crises faced by both Britain and China at the time, his background in Scottish Medicine, and encounters with Late-Qing Confucianism (namely, KANG Youwei) would help us develop a more unified understanding of his underappreciated efforts to modernise Confucianism, as well as the aforementioned multifarious roles he played.

Lilith W. LEE is an Assistant Professor in the History of Philosophy at Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. She is also currently a Research Fellow at the National Museum of Singapore. Lilith’s research interests centre on issues in ethics, social philosophy, early and Straits Chinese philosophy, as well as comparative philosophy/world philosophies. Most recently, she has been working on reconstructing the hybrid philosophies and intellectual histories of the fin-de-siècle Straits Chinese philosophers Lim Boon Keng and Tan Teck Soon. She also has an abiding interest in socio-political philosophy during the Late Warring States Period in China, as well as how 19th-century British women anti-suffragism can help us reexamine and rehabilitate the critical-theoretic concept of false consciousness.