Feng Youlan (Simplified Chinese: 冯友兰; Traditional Chinese: 馮友蘭; pinyin: Féng Yǒulán; Wade-Giles: Feng Yu-lan; also: Fung Yu-Lan; 1895–1990) was a Chinese philosopher who was important for reintroducing the study of Chinese philosophy. Jump to: navigation, search Simplified Chinese characters (Simplified Chinese: 简体字; Traditional Chinese: 簡體字; pinyin: jiÇŽntǐzì; also called 简化字/簡化字, jiÇŽnhuàzì) are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Jump to: navigation, search Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Jump to: navigation, search Pinyin (Chinese: 拼音, pÄ«nyÄ«n) literally means join (together) sounds (a less literal translation being phoneticize, spell or transcription) in Chinese and usually refers to HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n (汉语拼音, literal meaning: Han language pinyin), which is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to... Wade-Giles, sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration) system for the Chinese language based on Mandarin. ... Chinese philosophy has a history of several thousand years. ... Yin/Yang symbol and ba gua paved in a clearing outside of Nanning city, Guangxi province. ...

Early life, education, & career

Feng Youlan was born on 4 December 1895 in Tanghe, Henan Province, China, to a middle-class family. He studied philosophy at Shanghai University, then at Beijing University where he was able study Western philosophy and logic as well as Chinese philosophy. Jump to: navigation, search December 4 is the 338th day (339th on leap years) of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1895 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Not to be confused with the unrelated provinces of Hainan and Hunan Henan (Chinese: 河南; pinyin: Hénán; Wade-Giles: Ho-nan), is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. ... Shanghai University (上海大学) is a public university in Shanghai, China. ... Peking University 博学审问慎思明辨 Peking University or Beijing University (pinyin Běijīng Dàxué), colloquially Beida (北大, pinyin běidà), is one of the most prestigious universities in China. ... Jump to: navigation, search Logic (from Classical Greek λόγος (logos), originally meaning the word, or what is spoken, (but coming to mean thought or reason) is most often said to be the study of arguments, although the exact definition of logic is a matter of controversy amongst philosophers (see below). ... Yin/Yang symbol and ba gua paved in a clearing outside of Nanning city, Guangxi province. ...

Upon his graduation in 1918 he travelled to the United States, where he studied at Columbia University on a Boxer Indemnity grant. There he met, among many philosophers who were to influence his thought and career, John Dewey, the pragmatist, who became his teacher. Feng gained his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1925, though he spent the last two years working on his thesis (A Comparative Study of Life Ideals) back in China. Jump to: navigation, search 1918 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search Columbia University is a private university in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. ... Jump to: navigation, search John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, whose thought has been greatly influential in the United States and around the world. ... Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1925 was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ...

He went on to teach at a number of Chinese universities (including Guangdong, Yanjing, and Tsinghua (in Beijing). It was while at Tsinghua that Feng published what was to be his best-known and most influential work, his History of Chinese Philosophy (1934, in two volumes). In it he presented and examined the history of Chinese philosophy from a viewpoint which was very much influenced by the Western philosophical fashions prevalent at the time, which resulted in what Peter J. King of Oxford describes as a distinctly positivist tinge to most of the philosophers he described. Nevertheless, the book became the standard work in its field, and had a huge effect in reigniting an interest in Chinese thought. Jump to: navigation, search Tsinghua University Tsinghua University (Simplified Chinese: 清华大学; Traditional Chinese: 清華大學; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Ching-hua Ta-hsüeh) is one of the most prestigious universities in China. ... Jump to: navigation, search Beijing ▶(?) (Chinese: 北京; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Pei-ching; Postal System Pinyin: Peking) is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). ... Peter J. King (born March 27, 1956) is a British poet and humanist philosopher. ... Jump to: navigation, search Positivism can have several meanings. ...

In 1939 Feng brought out his Xin Li-xue (New Rational Philosophy, or Neo-Lixue). Lixue was a philosophical position of a small group of twelfth-century neo-Confucianists (including Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, and Zhuxi); Feng's book took certain metaphysical notions from their thought and from taoism (such as li and tao, analysed and developed them in ways that owed much to the Western philosophical tradition, and produced a rationalistic neo-Confucian metaphysics. He also developed, in the same way, an account of the nature of morality and of the structure of human moral development. Jump to: navigation, search 1939 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... (11th century - 12th century - 13th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century was that century which lasted from 1101 to 1200. ... Jump to: navigation, search Neo-Confucianism (理學 Pinyin: Lǐxué) is a term for a form of Confucianism that was primarily developed during the Song dynasty, but which can be traced back to Han Yu and Li Ao in the Tang dynasty. ... Zhu Xi (朱熹, Hanyu Pinyin: Zhū Xī, Wade-Giles: Chu Hsi) (1130 - 1200) was a Song Dynasty (960-1279) Confucian scholar who became one of most significant Neo-Confucians in China. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Yin-Yang or Taiji diagram, often used as a symbol in Taoism. ... Li or li may refer to: Lee or Li is a transliteration of several Chinese and Korean family names, see Li (Chinese name) and Lee (Korean name). ... Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see TAO or Dao. ...

War and upheaval

When the Sino-Japanese War broke out, the students and staff of Tsinghua, Beijing, and Nankai Universities fled Beijing. They went first to Hengshan, where they set up the Changsha Temporary University, and then to Kunming, where they set up Southwest Associated University. When, in 1946 the three Universities returned to Beijing, Feng instead went to the U.S. again, this time to take up a post as visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania There were two wars known as the Sino-Japanese War (between China and Japan): The First Sino-Japanese War occurred between 1894 and 1895, primarily over control of Korea. ... Nankai University (Simplified Chinese: 南开大学; Traditional Chinese: 南開大學; pinyin: ), located in Tianjin, is one of the leading universities in China. ... Jump to: navigation, search Kunming (Chinese: 昆明; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Kun-ming) is the capital of Yunnan province, China. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1946 was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... Jump to: navigation, search The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn or UPenn, although the former is the preferred and recognized nickname of the University) is a private, nonsectarian, research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ...

While he was at Pennsylvania, news from China made it clear that the communists were on their way to seizing power. Feng's friends tried to pesuade him to stay, but he was determined to return; his political views were broadly socialist, and he thus felt optimistic about China's future under its new government. Jump to: navigation, search Communism refers to a theoretical system of social organization and a political movement based on common ownership of the means of production. ... Jump to: navigation, search The color red and particularly the red flag are traditional symbols of Socialism. ...

Once back home, Feng began to study Marxist-Leninist thought, but he soon found that the political situation fell short of his hopes; by the mid-1950s his philosophical approach was being attacked by the authorities. He was forced to repudiate much of his earlier work, and to rewrite the rest – including his History – in order to fit in with the ideas of the Cultural revolution. Jump to: navigation, search // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the height of the... Jump to: navigation, search A poster during the Cultural Revolution. ...

Despite all this, Feng refused to leave China, and after enduring much hardship he finally saw a relaxation of censorship, and was able to write with a certain degree of freedom. He died on 26 November 1990 in Beijing. Jump to: navigation, search November 26 is the 330th day (331st on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search For the Temptations album, see 1990 (Temptations album) MCMXC redirects here; for the Enigma album, see MCMXC a. ... Jump to: navigation, search Beijing ▶(?) (Chinese: 北京; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Pei-ching; Postal System Pinyin: Peking) is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). ...

Feng Youlan continues to be known mostly for his History of Chinese Philosophy, which is still in print, but he was in fact an original and influential philosopher in his own right, deserving of greater attention.

Bibliography

Monographs & collections of essays

• 1934: A History of Chinese Philosophy
  • 1983: translated by Derk Bodde (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press) ISBN 0691020213
  • 1948: A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (Collier-Macmillan) — reprinted 1997: Free Press ISBN 0684836343
• 1939: Xin Li-xue (New Rational Philosophy) (Changsha: Commercial Press)
  • 1997A New Treatise on the Methodology of Metaphysics (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press) ISBN 7119019473
• Selected Philosophical Writings of Fung Yu-lan (Beijing: Foreign Language Press) ISBN 7119010638
• Xin yuan ren (A New Treeatise on the Nature of Man (Chongqing: Commercial Press)
• 1946: Xin zhi yan (A New Understanding of Words) ((Shanghai: Commercial Press)
• 1947: The Spirit of Chinese Philosophy transl. E.R. Hughes (London: Kegan Paul)
  • 1970: (Greenwood Press) ISBN 0837128161
• 1961: Xin yuan dao (A New Treatise on the Nature of Tao) (Xiang gang: Zhong-guo zhe-xue jan jiu hui)

As translator

• 1991: A Taoist Classic: Chuang-Tzu (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press) ISBN 7119001043

Secondary

• 2004: Peter J. King One Hundred Philosophers (Hove: Apple) ISBN 1-84092-462-4
• 2001: Francis Soo “Contemporary Chinese Philosophy”, in Brian Carr & Indira Mahalingam [edd] Companion Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy (London: Routledge) ISBN 0-415-24038-7

Peter J. King (born March 27, 1956) is a British poet and humanist philosopher. ...

External links

• 'Philosophy of Contemporary China' — on-line text provided by The Radical Academy
• [1] Short bio page at Tsinghua University, useful primarly because it has a photograph. Reports PhD as 1924.