The Political Philosophy of Zh-轻识

Zhang Taiyan (1868-1936) is famous for being one of the first thinkers in China to promote revolution in the early twentieth century. Scholars have addressed Zhang’s revolutionary and nationalist thought, but until this work there has not been any sustained engagement with Zhang’s Buddhist writings which aimed to understand and criticize the world from the perspective of consciousness. These philosophical works are significant because they exemplify how, as Chinese intellectuals entered the global capitalist world, they constantly tried to find resources to create an alternative. As the author argues in the conclusion, this desire to create an alternative to capitalism remained throughout twentieth century China and continues today in the works of critical intellectuals such as Wang Hui. Thus this work is important not only to understand our past, but to hope for a better future.

Viren Murthy initially studied philosophy at the University of Hawaii before joining the PhD. program in History at the University of Chicago and his work combines these two disciplines. He completed a dissertation entitled, “The Myriad Things Stem from Confusion: Nationalism, Ontology and Resistance in Zhang Taiyan’s Philosophy” in 2006. He is generally interested in the attempts of East Asian intellectuals to resist modernity through reviving aspects of the tradition and, in particular, Buddhism. In this light, he also studies the Chinese and Japanese intellectuals of the 1930s and 60s who combine traditional ideas with modern ideologies such as Marxism.

Although his work is historical it constantly hovers around themes that are relevant to contemporary China and Japan, such as nationalism, Marxism, liberalism and the problem of modernity. Thus he is also intrigued by the writings of contemporary Chinese and Japanese intellectuals such as Wang Hui, Sun Ge and Karatani Kôjin. His articles have appeared in Modern Intellectual History, Dushu (the Reader) and Chûgoku tetsugaku kenkyû.