Chapter Seven. The Establishment And Development Of Feng Youlan’s View Of Culture

Abstract

This chapter argues that Feng Youlan's view of culture with its core formed by 'China and the West' and 'past-present' can in fact be divided into four periods of growth and change. It first discusses the historical sequence and organisation of the actual development and turns in Feng Youlan's view of culture. From this, it shows that the actual development of Feng's thought was much more complex than he set out in the reflections of his old age. The chapter then examines how Feng's view of culture dealt with a tradition that stood in contrast to modernity and with the question of nationalisation that stood in contrast to modernisation. In this way it is evident that to see Feng's view of culture as merely one of 'past-present' is only a partial view. Keywords: Feng Youlan; modernisation; national cultures; nationalisation