Modern moral confucianism and the challenge of modernization

reflections on Liang Shuming, Xiong Shili, and Mou Zongsan

Zhiming Song

pp. 327-338

in: Xinzhong Yao (ed), Reconceptualizing Confucian philosophy in the 21st century, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

Since even before the May Fourth Movement, Western thinking has attempted to assert itself into the Chinese mind at the very expense of the heritage of traditional Chinese Confucianism. In spite of this, there are a good number of modern Confucian scholars, including first of all Liang Shuming (1893–1988), Xiong Shili (1885–1968), Tang Junyi (1909–1978), Xu Fuguan (1904–1982), and Mou Zongsang (1909–1995), who exerted tremendous efforts to adapt traditional Confucian philosophy to the conditions of the modern age.