A Concise History of Chinese Philosophy

Introduction.- The Pre-Qin Period (ca. 1046 - 256 BCE).- The Rise of Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, and Legalism.- The High Tide of Contention among the "Hundred Schools of Thought".- The Summing-up Stage of Pre-Qin Philosophy.- From the Qin-Han to the Qing Dynasty.- The Supremacy of Confucianism and Criticisms of Confucian Theology.- Mysterious Learning and the Coexistence of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism.- A Tendency towards the Confluence of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism.- The Summing-up Stage of Ancient Chinese Philosophy.- Modern Period.- The Forerunners of Modern Chinese Philosophy.- The Stage of Evolutionism in the Philosophical Revolution.- The Philosophical Revolution Enters the Stage of Materialist Dialectics.- The Sinicization of Marxism and the Contributions Made by Professional Philosophers.

This book is written by Feng Qi and abridged by Chen Weiping.

Feng Qi (1915-1995) is a prestigious Modern Chinese philosopher and historian of philosophy. He was the founder of the Department of Philosophy, East China Normal University, Shanghai. He firmly believed that "one should keep one's mind free regardless of the circumstances." He devoted his life to the enduring question of how to transform knowledge into wisdom, and tried to resolve the question by constructing what he called "epistemology in a broad sense." 

Feng Qi's original philosophical thinking is compiled in his "Three Treatises on Wisdom" (including Knowing the World and Knowing Oneself, The Dialectics of Logical Thinking, and The Good, the True, and the Beautiful: Contexts of Human Freedom, and his two works on the history of Chinese philosophy, including The Logical Development of Ancient Chinese Philosophy and The Revolutionary Course of Modern Chinese Philosophy. Feng Qi's theory of wisdom comprehensively brings together Marxist, Chinese, and Western philosophy in his search for the values of truth, goodness, and beauty. His thought aligns philosophy with the ultimate aspirations of humankind. His theory of wisdom has been an important source for the study of Chinese philosophy and attracted international attention over the past 20 years.


Chen Weiping, a professor at the Department of Philosophy, East China Normal University. He is well-known and influential for his study of Chinese philosophy, especially the history of modern and contemporary Chinese philosophy. As a disciple of Feng Qi, he is one of the philosophers who know Feng Qi's theory best. Feng Qi was quite satisfied with this abridged version of his history of Chinese philosophy, just as he says in the "Preface": "Chen Weiping's abridgement is faithful to the original and creatively done. He has for many years been teaching and doing research in the history of Chinese philosophy, and