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This volume is the follow-up to
Understanding Confucian Philosophy: Classical and Sung-Ming, which presented the first two Epochs of Confucian philosophy. The third Epoch, presented in this book, is that of Contemporary Neo-Confucian philosophy. It notes a paradigm shift from the late Ming to the early Ch'ing, which shows us how the line of Sung-Ming Neo-Confucian philosophy was broken. Then, background information is given to answer the question of how the phoenix was reborn from the ashes; at the height of the iconoclast May Fourth Movement in 1919, Liang Sou-ming, the forerunner of the movement, developed his ideas about East-West cultures and their philosophies.
During the darkest moments of Chinese history, three generations of New Confucian scholars developed their ideas and achieved great scholarship. Shu-hsien Liu presents a framework of four groups to portray the movement. And, the philosophies of Fung Yu-lan, Hsuing Shih-li, Thome H. Fang, T'ang Chun-I, and Mou tsung-san are reviewed and analyzed. The international dimension of the third generation of New Confucians is also introduced. In the conclusion, Shu-hsien Liu comments on the relevance of this trend of thought today with a view toward the future.
List of contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Paradigm Shift in the Transitional Period from the Late Ming to the Early Ch'ing
Background for the Emergence of Contemporary Neo-Confucianism
Fung Yu-lan's New Learning of Principle
The Spiritual World of Hsiung Shih-li
Thome Fang's Grand Scheme of Comparative Philosophy
The Spiritual Shere of T'ang Chun-I
Mou Tsung-san's Assertion of Intellectual Intuition
The International Dimension of the Third Generation New Confucians
Epilogue
Selected Bibliography
About the author
SHU-HSIEN LIU is Chair Professor of Chinese Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has published many articles and books both in English and in Chinese. He has been widely recognized as a representative of contemporary Neo-Confucianism.
