ABSTRACT
The search for the possibility of dialogue between the Confucian doctrine of “humaneness” and liberalism is as an academic endeavor intrinsically relevant to the critical situation of traditional Chinese culture, which has been looking for a way-out for itself in modern times. As one of the main issues of the Chinese in modern times, it touches on the value of traditional culture. Xu Fuguan (徐复观), as one of its very important representatives, has tried to demonstrate the spiritual connection between Confucianism and democracy in modern free society, while Yin Haiguang (殷海光), who is a lifelong disciple of Friedrich August von Hayek in spirit, also returned to Confucianism in the latter part of his life, holding that the spiritual source of “inner freedom” (or moral freedom) can be found in the Confucian tradition. Professor William Theodore de Bary of Columbia University has with arduous and detailed discussions spent a lifetime investigating the thought on freedom implied in Confucianism, having been especially focused on the period from the Song and Ming dynasties to the time of Huang Zongxi (黄宗羲). This chapter argues that all of these discourses are the most valuable literary proofs of and spiritual inspirations for the dialogue between Confucianism and liberalism.
