Prof. Yang Hengda on Confucianism in Modern China

RAS WEEKENDER 

Saturday June 19^th, 2010 @ 4.00pm  

The PuLi Hotel and Spa,

1 ChangDe Road

, JingAn District

璞麗酒店, 静安区常德路1号

Prof. Yang Hengda

Confucianism in Modern China

For two thousand years Confucianism had been an orthodox ideological system. In the 20^th century it suffered two vital strikes; the May 4^th Movement and the Cultural Revolution.

Now it is facing two major problems:

1) it is still considered as something harmful to modern society and the progress of mankind, especially to democracy, rule by law, equality and universal love;

2) it is understood, by a trend of narrow nationalism for a political philosophy and ethical code that is pure Chinese and better than Western values such as Western styled democracy, legal system, individualism, etc.

The fact is, without Confucianism as the soul of the nation, there is evermore evidence of the rapid decline of morality, especially in the fields of business ethics and political ethics. No one can ignore our lack of spiritual pursuit in the fast economic development.

Therefore; it is imminently necessary to establish a common platform for the dialog between the Chinese and peoples all over the world by seeking the common universal values in Confucianism and philosophies of other civilizations.

Professor Yang Hengda is a distinguished scholar, linguist, teacher, author, and an active member of many professional associations, institutions and organisations related to his area of study and interest.

Born and raised in Shanghai, he completed his MA at Renmin (People’s) University Beijing where he became a member of the faculty of comparative literature on completion of his degree. He continued his studies in Germany as a visiting scholar at Bonn

University. He has been a visiting professor on a number of occasions, more recently in the department of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts (Boston) and remains a full professor at RenminUniversity where he is in charge of the doctoral program in comparative literature.

He has received many honours of distinction, authored many works, contributed to others as well as translating many key works in to Chinese.

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