Comprehensive Harmony versus Antipathetic Duality: Thome H. Fang’s ViewPoint on the Spirit of Chinese and Western Philosophy

Abstract

In his comparative philosophy, Thomé H. Fang issues the spirit of Chinese philosophy as the type of wisdom of comprehensive harmony; meanwhile, Western philosophy remains a conflicting mode of thinking of bifurcation or duality. Comparatively, the spirit of Chinese philosophy possesses a superiority which might issue a challenge to Western philosophy. Fang even takes it as the only remedy capable of solving the theoretical problems of Western philosophy. Practically, Fang has revealed the theoretical problems of Western philosophy and profoundly criticized Western modernity. Although he does tend to overstate the superiority of the Chinese concept of the unity of Heaven and Human, thereby overlooking its defects, Fang has nevertheless advanced comparative philosophical research to a new stage.