Hu Shi volume

Author: Shen Weiwei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-02-01
Features: Hu Shi's thought is characterized as gradualist, concrete, anti-dogmatic, individualistic, skeptical, empirical, and aligned with enlightenment. This thought is neither grand nor esoteric. It is the kind of thought that an open self in an open society possesses. Broadly speaking, the entire Western society largely lives within Hu Shi's thought. Alternatively: Hu Shi's thought is largely derived from the practical life of the entire Western society. Due to historical circumstances, Mr. Hu held a leading position in the cultural and intellectual circles of Chinese culture very early on. His own intellectual dilemmas and confusions naturally influenced the quality of certain aspects of the cultural and intellectual landscape since the May Fourth Movement. Hu Shi was one of the most important historical figures in China in the 20th century. Throughout his diligent life, he played numerous roles: a thinker of the May Fourth enlightenment movement, the theoretical founder of the vernacular movement, an advocate for modern higher education and in-depth research in China, a freedom fighter who was persecuted by the Nationalist government in the 1920s and 1930s for publishing The Human Rights Collection, a historian, an epigrapher, a diplomat, a cultural luminary, and more. Under the historical conditions of the time, Hu Shi introduced advanced ideas such as science, democracy, equality, and freedom to China, which was a significant contribution to China's intellectual and cultural circles. However, his advocacy for "wholesale Westernization" and his denial of armed struggle and violent revolution also had negative impacts. Although much of Hu Shi's academic writings have become outdated, and his political essays are now outdated, under the influence of the May Fourth generation, Hu Shi's writings undoubtedly reflect a product of the spirit of his contemporaries.