Philosopher
Hu Shi
1891–1962
Also known as Hu Shih
Student of John Dewey and leader of China's New Culture Movement, who championed pragmatism, the scientific method and the vernacular against Confucian tradition.
Hu Shi studied with John Dewey at Columbia University and invited him to lecture in China when the May Fourth Movement broke out. He became the chief leader of the New Culture Movement, promoting a pragmatic, critical spirit and the scientific method in every branch of study.
When the movement split, he led its liberal camp against the communist camp of Chen Duxiu. He praised Mohism as perhaps the earliest form of pragmatism in Chinese thought, and devalued traditional Chinese culture for lacking science and democracy.
Key ideas
- Bold hypotheses, careful checks
- Hu advocated the scientific method in every field of study, summed up in his motto: be bold in framing hypotheses, careful in checking them.
- Against Confucian authority
- Confucianism had led the Chinese astray, Hu argued, by teaching submission to ruler, father, family and state, and Daoism by teaching them to comply with nature rather than understand and control it.
- For the vernacular
- Archaic language could not convey real experience and should give way to the vernacular, and inherited classics should be re-examined for forgeries. His Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy was the first such book in vernacular Chinese.
- Tradition
- Chinese
- Region
- China and the United States
- Schools
- Pragmatism
- Themes
- Knowledge and scepticism
Influences
Where these links come from
- Hu Shi studied with and drew on John Dewey. Source: Yih-Hsien Yu, Chinese Philosophy, Modern, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Key works
- Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy, 1919
Sources
- Yih-Hsien Yu, Chinese Philosophy, Modern, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy