Abstract
Hu Shi, a twentieth-century scholar and reformer, perceived a foundation for China’s future in a more complicated rendition of China’s intellectual past. Hu understood China’s predicament in rhetorical terms, as an exigent situation that could not be effectively confronted without the right intellectual and cultural resources. Like other pragmatists, Hu saw democracy as a way life. He did not think that democratic thought was foreign to China. This essay is an examination of one arm of Hu’s plan for rhetorical pragmatic reform. First developed in his dissertation, “The Development of Logical Method in Ancient China,” this arm sought to develop a pragmatic “attitude toward ideas” and restore the characteristics of what he calls the “Chinese Sophist” and the original “spirit of courageous doubt.”
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Notes
- 1.
For consistency within the text, words written in the Wade-Giles Romanization system in direct quotes have been changed to the contemporary pinyin Romanization system. Likewise, Hu Shi’s name is written according to pinyin in the text. The older variation, Hu Shih, is used in citations if the source was originally written using Wade-Giles.
- 2.
Confucianism is not the Romanization of a Chinese term; it is not a term used in Chinese. The term for Confucian teachings and practices is “Ru.” As Xinzhong Yao (2000) explains, “Confucius,” named Kongzi in Chinese, “was recognized as the symbol of the Ru” (p. 27). The term “Rujia” refers to “the school or tradition of literati or scholars who have committed themselves to the tradition of the Ru” (Yao 2000, 27).
- 3.
Hu says the faith “never had a generic name.” Elsewhere he calls it Siniticism (Hu 1995, 441).
- 4.
The English name “Confucius” is replaced with the Chinese “Kongzi” in brackets.
- 5.
Also Hu (1995, 446).
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Butterfield, R. (2019). Hu Shi’s Search for the “Chinese Sophist” and “Spirit of Courageous Doubt”. In: Danisch, R. (eds) Recovering Overlooked Pragmatists in Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14343-5_3
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