How to epitomize the Essentials of Chinese Philosophy?
Professor Wing-tsit Chan, distinguished senior scholar in the field, thus opens chapter one in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy: If one word could characterize the entire history of Chinese philosophical thought, that word would be humanism … We are afraid that that one word is not enough; for, as it stands, it is a description in terms of genus without species. Naturally one wonders: What then makes it different from the humanism in ancient Greece (Heraclitus, Protagoras, Socrates, etc.) involving the tension of Man vs. Nature, on the one hand, and the humanism in modern Europe since the Renaissance involving the ten-sion of Man vs. God, on the other? Fully aware of the importance of due qualification, Professor Chan continues, not the humanism that denies or slights a Supreme Power, but one that professes the unity of man, [Nature] and Heaven. In this sense, humanism has dominated Chinese thought from the dawn of its history.[ii] In 1971 co-author Suncrates coined the term creat
