Tradition and Modernity

Chen Lai, PhD. (Peking University), is a Professor of Philosophy and the director of the Center for Confucian Study and the History of Chinese Philosophy at Peking University. He is one of China's most prominent scholars of the history of Chinese philosophy, is an honorary professor at eleven universities and is a member of the editorial boards of sixteen academic journals.
Edmund Ryden, PhD. (SOAS, London University), translated Key Concepts in Chinese Philosophy (Yale 2002) and the Laozi: Daodejing (Oxford World’s Classics 2008). He has also written on the philosophical background to human rights in a Chinese context.

Sociologists, Sinologists, Contemporary China watchers, students of Chinese philosophy and Confucianism, and those interested in the role of religion in society and the harmonisation of tradition and modernity.

"The editors have wisely chosen to lead off the series with a collection of essays by Chen Lai, who is mainland China’s most prominent scholar in the history of Confucian philosophy. The translation by Edmund Ryden is excellent, and the translator has added helpful footnotes to explain some of the references for the general reader...I strongly recommend this book for anybody who is interested in the history of twentieth-century Confucianism and what it can offer to China and the world."
Daniel Bell, Tsinghua University

Series Editors’ Foreword
Translator’s Preface

Introduction: The Humanist View
1. Retrospect and Prospect for Contemporary Chinese Thought
2. Resolving the Tension between Tradition and Modernity: Reflections on the May Fourth Cultural Tide
3. The May Fourth Tide and Modernity
4. Radicalism in the Cultural Movement of the 20th Century
5. Modern Chinese Culture and the Difficulties of Confucian Learning
6. Liang Shuming’s Early View of Oriental and Western Culture
7. The Establishment and Development of Feng Youlan’s View of Culture
8. A Reflection on the New School of Principle and Thoughts on Modernity
9. Confucian Thought and the World of Modern East Asia
10. Confucian Ethics and China’s Modernisation
11. East Asian Tradition according to Modernisation Theory
12. A Sense of Predicament and Inter-dependency
13. Liang Shuming and Max Weber on Chinese Culture
14. Values, Authority, Tradition and Chinese Philosophy
15. The Difficulty of Undertaking National Studies Research in the Nineties: The problem of the national studies fever and research into traditional culture
16. The Value and Status of Traditional Chinese Culture

Postscript: Talking of Tradition at the Turn of the Century
Postface to the revised edition