Tu Weiming

Chinese-American philosopher — New Confucianism, 'cultural China' and spiritual humanism

Peking University (Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies); Harvard University (emeritus) · China · d. 6 February 1940 (Kunming)

A Chinese-American philosopher of Confucian thought who studied at Tunghai and Harvard and taught at Harvard for over three decades before founding the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Peking University. Through the ideas of 'cultural China' and Boston Confucianism he argues that the Confucian tradition offers a living resource for ethics and self-cultivation in a global age, and promotes dialogue among civilisations.

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Record

Life: b. 6 February 1940 (Kunming) — living
Country: China
Period: Contemporary
Affiliation: Peking University (Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies); Harvard University (emeritus)
Areas: Confucian philosophy, Comparative philosophy, Ethics, Religious studies
Major works: Neo-Confucian Thought in Action: Wang Yang-ming's Youth (1976)
Humanity and Self-Cultivation: Essays in Confucian Thought (1979)
Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation (1985)
Confucianism in an Historical Perspective (1989)
Way, Learning, and Politics: Essays on the Confucian Intellectual (1993)
The Global Significance of Concrete Humanity (2010)
Key concepts: New Confucianism, Cultural China, Boston Confucianism, Spiritual humanism, Confucian self-cultivation, The anthropocosmic vision, Dialogue among civilisations
Influenced by: Confucius, Mencius, Wang Yangming, Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi, Xu Fuguan
Sources: Wikipedia, Tu Weiming
Peking University, Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding

Stories

World

Germany's philosophers open the Nazi file; China orders an 'autonomous' philosophy

The German Society for Philosophy has launched a working group on philosophy and National Socialism, conceding that the subject has no settled place in research or teaching. In Beijing, sixty scholars debated how to build a 'Chinese autonomous philosophical knowledge system', a phrase that belongs to Xi Jinping. And a sociologist's book on reproduction in Palestine/Israel reaches a philosophy audience.

Martin Heidegger, Confucius, Tu Weiming

World Desk5 October 2026

Contemporary Philosophers

Record

Stories

Germany's philosophers open the Nazi file; China orders an 'autonomous' philosophy

Tu Weiming and the case that you need not Westernise to modernise