Journal of East China Normal University (Philosoph ›› 2014, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (5): 47-53.

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On the Influence of the Spirit of Christianity on HE Lin’s Philosophy of Mind

GU Hong-liang   

  • Online:2014-09-15 Published:2014-10-02
  • Contact: GU Hong-liang
  • About author:GU Hong-liang

Abstract: When HE Lin studied in the US, Christianity influenced not only his daily life emotionally but his intellectual life rationally as well. Thus Christianity provides a strong and vigorous spiritual support to his “new philosophy of mind”. We can see the implicit elements of Christianity in his interpretation of the “three meanings of the Supreme Ultimate (taiji)”, “the equivalence of mind with principle” and the spiritual manifestation of a Confucianist. Christianity has penetrated HE’s philosophy of mind in an imperceptible way and become one of its essential factors. This endows HE’s “new philosophy of mind” with a special philosophy of religion which is absent in other philosophical systems of modern Confucianism and provides him with a religious dimension in his new development of Confucianism.