Mou Zongsan
| Mou Zongsan | |
|---|---|
| Born |
12 June 1909 Shandong, Empire of China |
| Died | 12 April 1995 (aged 85) Taipei, Taiwan |
| Alma mater | Peking University |
Mou Zongsan (Chinese: 牟宗三; pinyin: Móu Zōngsān; Wade–Giles: Mou Tsungsan, 1909–1995) was a Chinese New Confucian philosopher. He was born in Shandong province and graduated from Peking University. In 1949 he moved to Taiwan and later to Hong Kong, and he remained outside of mainland China for the rest of his life. His thought was heavily influenced by Immanuel Kant, whose three Critiques he translated, possibly first, into Chinese, and above all by Tiantai Buddhist philosophy.
Over the last 40 years of his life, Mou wrote histories of "Neo-Daoist," Confucian, and Buddhist philosophy (totaling six volumes) a group of constructive philosophic treatises, culminating in his 1985 work, On the Summum Bonum (Chinese: 圓善論; pinyin: yuanshan lun), in which he attempts to rectify the problems in Kant's system through a Confucian-based philosophy reworked with a set of concepts appropriated from Tiantai Buddhism.
In the People's Republic of China, Mou is especially famous for his cultural traditionalism and his defense of democracy as a traditional Chinese value.
Mou Zongsan was born into the family of an innkeeper in Qixia, Shandong. He went to Peking University for college prep (1927) and undergraduate courses (1929). During that time he became a follower of Xiong Shili, author of the New Treatise on Consciousness-only and soon to be the most eminent philosopher in China until supplanted by Mou himself. After graduating in 1933, Mou moved around the country working as a secondary school teacher and a faculty member at different universities. In 1949 he followed the Nationalist government to Taiwan. His student at Tunghai University was Tu Weiming. In 1960 he moved to Hong Kong and eventually took up a post at New Asia College in Hong Kong (now part of the Chinese University of Hong Kong). During the last two decades of his life Mou was something of an intellectual celebrity. He lectured frequently on Confucian, Buddhist, Daoist, and Kantian philosophy at Hong Kong University, National Taiwan Normal University, and National Taiwan University. He died in Taipei in 1995, leaving dozens of disciples in top academic jobs in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
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