Chinese Liberal Spirit

David Elstein is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is the editor of Dao Companion to Contemporary Confucian Philosophy and the author of Democracy in Contemporary Confucian Philosophy.

• AcknowledgmentsA Note on LanguagePreface: My FatherHsu Woochun (Xu Wujun)IntroductionDavid ElsteinPart I: Autographical Essays1. My Life of Study2. The End of Democratic Review3. Mourning My Enemy, Mourning My FriendPart II: Ethical and Political Thought4. Two Layers of the Chinese Political Problem5. The Construction and Advancement of Ruist Political Thought6. The Fundamental Character of the Ruist Spirit, Its Limitations, and Its Rebirth7. The Chinese Way of Governance—After Reading Collected Writings of Master Lu Xuan8. Between Academia and Politics9. The Culture of the HeartMind10. The Creation of the Chinese Free Society11. The Ruist Distinction between Cultivating Oneself and Governing Others and Its Significance12. Why Oppose Liberalism?13. The Fundamental Structure of Mengzi's Political Thought and the Problem of Rule of Man and Rule of Law14. The Origin of Kongzi's Idea of Rule by Virtue15. The Question of Ruist and Daoist Personal Cultivation in LiteratureNotesReferencesIndex

"As a historian, I found that the three autobiographical essays in the volume offered a fascinating portrait of Xu as an exiled intellectual grappling with questions of identity, culture, and the Chinese nation, under the conditions of exile and estrangement from both Nationalist and Communist Chinas … this volume promises to be a useful teaching resource and introduction to intellectual debates in the 1950s and 1960s Sinosphere, especially among Chinese Confucian scholars who were writing from a place of exile." — Joshua Tan, Reading Religion"One of the most prominent representatives of contemporary New Confucianism, Xu Fuguan also represents how a Chinese intellectual deeply committed to Chinese cultural heritage can embrace the core values of democracy. Being the first book-length English translation of Xu's works, this volume fills an important gap." — Peimin Ni, author of Understanding the Analects of Confucius: A New Translation of Lunyu with Annotations