Modern Moral Confucianism and the Challenge of Modernization: Reflections on Liang Shuming, Xiong Shili, and Mou Zongsan

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.