Philosophical master Tang Junyi
Tang Junyi (1909-1978), formerly known as Bo Yi, was born in Zhouba, Pu'an Township, Yibin County (now Zhaochang Subdistrict, Xuzhou District, Yibin City). A famous thinker, philosopher and educator in modern China, and the main representative of contemporary neo-Confucianism.
In the spring of the 8th year of the Republic of China (1919), Tang Junyi enrolled in the Chengdu Provincial First Normal Primary School. In the autumn of the 10th year of the Republic of China (1921), Tang Junyi lived in Chongqing with his father Tang Difeng, studied at Chongqing United Middle School, and was successively taught by Xiao Zhonglun, Meng Wentong, Peng Yunsheng and other famous teachers. When Tang Junyi was 15 years old, he wrote "Xunzi's Sexual Theory" and published it.
Tang Junyi (1909—1978)
In the 14th year of the Republic of China (1925), Tang Junyi went to Beijing to study, first entering Sino-Russian University and then entering the Department of Philosophy of Peking University. In the 16th year of the Republic of China (1927), he transferred to the Department of Philosophy of Nanjing Central University to study, and was taught by professors Li Zhenggang, Xiong Shili, Tang Xiyu and so on. In the summer of the 21st year of the Republic of China (1932), Tang Junyi graduated from university and returned to Chengdu to serve as a middle school teacher. In the 23rd year of the Republic of China (1934), he returned to Central University to teach, and successively served as a teaching assistant, lecturer, and associate professor. In the 33rd year of the Republic of China (1944), he was promoted to professor and head of the Department of Philosophy, teaching courses such as "History of Chinese Philosophy" and "Introduction to Philosophy".
Tang Junyi began to write monographs in the 28th year of the Republic of China (1939), and by the 34th year of the Republic of China (1945), Tang Junyi's "Life Experience", "The Establishment of the Moral Self", "A Collection of Comparative Essays on Chinese and Western Philosophical Thought", "The Gospel of Love" and other publications were published, and his "The Establishment of the Moral Self" won the academic award of the Ministry of Education of the National Government. During this period, Tang Junyi's above works began to discuss life and morality, and began to form his modern neo-Confucian idealistic philosophical thought system.
In December of the 36th year of the Republic of China (1947), Tang Junyi went to Wuxi to serve as a professor and provost of Jiangnan University. In the autumn of the following year, he returned to teach at Chuo University, but still taught part-time at Jiangnan University.
In April of the 38th year of the Republic of China (1949), Tang Junyi was hired by Huaqiao University in Guangzhou to teach with Qian Mu, and moved to Hong Kong in June of the same year.
In the spring of 1950, Tang Junyi co-founded New Asia College in Hong Kong, together with Qian Mu and Zhang Pijie, and served as the provost and head of the philosophy department of New Asia College. The college inherits the spirit of the lectures of Song Ming College, adopts the tutor system of Western European institutions to communicate Chinese and Western cultures, and has become the base camp of modern neo-Confucian teaching.
In 1957, Tang Junyi was invited by the U.S. Department of State to visit the United States to give lectures. On New Year's Day of the following year, the "Declaration for World Culture to Respect the World" drafted by Tang Junyi and signed by Zhang Junli and Taiwanese neo-Confucian scholars Mou Zongsan and Xu Fuguan was praised as the ideological program of modern neo-Confucianism to "return to the original and open up a new one".
In 1964, Hong Kong Chinese University was established, with New Asia College as one of the member colleges. In 1974, Tang retired from the University of Chinese Hong Kong as a Chair Professor and continued to serve as Director of the New Asia Institute. In 1977, his book "Life Existence and Spiritual Realm" was published, and Tang Junyi was praised as "China's outstanding philosopher since Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming".
"Life Existence and Spiritual Realm"
Tang Junyi has lived in Hong Kong for 29 years, visited 14 overseas visits, traveled to Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, the United States, Italy, Switzerland and other countries, and participated in 10 international academic conferences.
Tang Junyi has more than 20 monographs and hundreds of academic papers, totaling nearly 10 million words. Taiwan Student Bookstore publishes The Complete Works of Tang Junyi.
The Complete Works of Tang Junyi
On February 2, 1978, Tang Junyi died of illness in Hong Kong.
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Source: Sichuan Provincial Local History Work Office
Contribution: Yibin Local History Office