Philosophical Reflections on Truth, Goodness, and Beauty from the Perspective of Chinese and Western Cultures

Author: Deng Xiaomang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: In the history of Chinese academia, there are few eras that can truly be called "new." The most recent new era occurred in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. This was a time of turbulence and hardship in Chinese history, but it was also an era of intellectual creativity and the emergence of great masters. Amid the intense collision between Chinese and Western learning, tradition and modernity, brilliant ideas emerged not only in the fields of literature, history, and philosophy but also in the realm of science, giving rise to a constellation of brilliant thinkers. This was an era that could rival the Hundred Schools of Thought in pre-Qin China. If this era had lasted for several hundred years like the pre-Qin period, Chinese scholars could have, like our ancestors, created a modern Chinese culture that would be celebrated by later generations and could stand shoulder to shoulder with Western dominant culture. But history does not allow for assumptions, and the merciless facts of history are that this academic new era ended too soon. A Philosophical Reflection on Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in the Context of Chinese and Western Cultures explores issues such as the universality and practicality of moral principles, the relationship between moral cultivation and cognition, and the connection between aesthetic activities, using typical examples from the lived world to elucidate the life value of ethical principles. This book is part of the New Perspectives on Morality and Philosophy series, edited by Zhao Dunhua. Faced with cultural transformation and moral construction in the 21st century, it offers interdisciplinary integrated thinking on major issues of the era, including tradition versus modernity, Chinese learning versus Western learning, the sacred versus the secular, science versus life, values versus facts, the individual versus society, human rights versus sovereignty, and justice versus efficiency. The authors explore the meanings of truth, goodness, and beauty by drawing on the philosophical classics of both Chinese and Western cultures.