ABSTRACT
The Opium War, in which the British decisively defeated China, for example, marks a watershed in the history of Chinese thought. This chapter focuses on China and examines the thought of representative thinkers who carried on this debate and influenced the shape and direction of China's twentieth-century development. Kang Youwei is probably best known as leader of the Hundred Days' Reform of 1898. Drawing upon Buddhist, Daoist, and Western as well as Confucian thought, Kang articulated the fullest utopian vision ever produced by a Chinese author. Zhang Dongsun, a largely self-educated philosopher, was one of the most influential interpreters of Western thought. Xiong Shili reflects the Chinese effort to find a basis for modernization in traditional thought. Fung Yu-lan is well known in the West for his classic two-volume History of Chinese Philosophy and The Spirit of Chinese Philosophy. The post-Mao philosophical revolution began with discussions on the nature and criteria of truth.
