Beida Philosophy Gate: Classic Anthology Selected by He Lin

Author: Chen Lai
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: He Lin (1902-1992), styled Zi Zhao, was a native of Jintang, Sichuan. He was a modern Chinese philosopher and translator, one of the early representatives of modern New Confucianism. In 1930, he went to Berlin University in Germany to specialize in German classical philosophy. After returning to China, he taught at the Department of Philosophy at Peking University for a long time and also taught at Tsinghua University. From 1955 onwards, he successively served as the Director of the Department of the History of Western Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Academic Committee Member of the Institute of Philosophy, the Honorary President of the National Association for the Study of Foreign Philosophy in China, as well as a member of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese Democratic League, a member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Democratic League, and a member of the Third and Fifth National Committee. In 1982, he joined the Communist Party of China.
He Lin had a deep understanding of Western philosophy and conducted in-depth research on Western modern philosophers such as Hegel, Spinoza, and Whitehead. In terms of Chinese philosophy and Confucian thought, he initially advocated that the "mind" was "fundamentally important," believing that "one cannot speak of things without the mind." In the 1930s, he established the "New Mindology" system, which was in contrast to Feng Youlan's "New Logicism," becoming one of the proponents of modern New Confucianism. He believed that Confucianism, represented by Confucius, Mencius, the teaching of the Book of Songs, the teaching of the Book of Rites, and the Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming dynasties, was an excellent tradition of Chinese culture. He proposed that Western thought and culture should be absorbed through three approaches—philosophization, religiousization, and artification—to reform, supplement, and develop Confucianism, aiming to achieve "a new development of Confucian thought." He believed that "Chinese culture, since the Song Confucians, can be said to have marked a new era, added a new seal, and taken a new direction." Although the thought of the Song Confucians had biases, their "philosophy was rich in love for the nation and its culture." The "investigation of things and the pursuit of principles" of the Song Confucians "seemed empty and abstract, but in fact had great utility."