Feng Youlan
The old Confucian idea of principle can be rebuilt with modern logic, and a human life rises through four levels of meaning.
Placement
Author of the classic “History of Chinese Philosophy” and of a “New Learning of Principle” that rebuilt Cheng–Zhu Neo-Confucianism with logical analysis.
Key ideas
- New Learning of Principle (xin lixue)
- Four spheres of life
- History of Chinese philosophy
Teachers: John Dewey
Influence
Influenced by 3
Cheng Yi
influenced by
Feng Youlan’s History of Chinese Philosophy (1934) made Cheng Yi, not his brother, the founder of the learning of principle that Feng renewed in Xin lixue (1939). Feng Youlan, Zhongguo zhexue shi (1931–34), tr. D. Bodde (1952–53); Xin lixue (1939); IEP “Feng Youlan”
Evidence: AI draft
Cheng Yi › 1033–1107
Zhu Xi
influenced by
Feng Youlan’s New Learning of Principle (Xin lixue, 1939) ‘carried on’ rather than merely followed Zhu Xi, recasting principle as logical concepts with the help of Western realism. Feng Youlan, Xin lixue (1939); IEP “Feng Youlan”
Evidence: AI draft
Zhu Xi › 1130–1200
John Dewey studied with
studied with
Feng studied with John Dewey at Columbia from 1919 and took his doctorate there with A Comparative Study of Life Ideals (1923, printed 1924). IEP “Feng Youlan”; Feng Yu-lan, A Comparative Study of Life Ideals (Shanghai 1924)
Evidence: AI draft
John Dewey › 1859–1952
Works
Two volumes (1931 and 1934) from Confucius to the Qing: for decades the standard account in China and, in translation, in the West.
Position
Feng Youlan’s History of Chinese Philosophy (1931–34) gave the field its modern shape and, translated by Derk Bodde, became the standard account in the West. His “New Learning of Principle” rebuilt Cheng–Zhu thought by logical analysis: principles (li) are real without existing in space and time. In A New Treatise on the Nature of Man he distinguished four spheres of life: natural, utilitarian, moral and transcendent, the last being oneness with the universe. After 1949 he repeatedly renounced his views and in 1973–74 joined the campaign to criticise Lin Biao and Confucius, for which he was much reproached. In old age he rewrote his history in seven volumes.
Life & context
Feng Youlan was born in 1895 in Tanghe (Henan). After studying philosophy at Peking University he took a doctorate at Columbia University, where Dewey was among his teachers. From 1928 he taught at Tsinghua University; during the war against Japan he worked out his own system at the exiled Southwest Associated University in Kunming. He stayed in the People’s Republic after 1949 and died in Beijing in 1990.
Further main works
- New Learning of Principle (Xin lixue, 1939)
- A New Treatise on the Nature of Man (Xin yuanren, 1943)
- A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (1948)
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