Abstract:

It is an inevitably confronted problem in the transition process from conventional to modern society to smash the bonds of holistic system of values and set up a new value system based on individual independence, freedom atid right. Carrying on the enlightenment thought in the turn of Ming and Qing dynasties, and taking the rediscovery of individuality of human existence as a breakthrough, modern Chinese enlightenment philosophy set about to charge the essentialist tendency represented by Neo-Confucianism and relevant authoritarianism and absolutism. To value and demonstrate the ego, to have speculative discussions on the relationship between individual and collective, and to positively affirm non-rationalism, all this expressed, philosophically, those modem thinkers' concerns of human individual existence and its freedom. According to modern enlightenment philosophy, when the principle of freedom is to take place of holism in the relationship between collective and individual, an internal slave-like personality must be got rid of, and an external institutional suppression must be broken through as well. The former finds a primary expression in a pursuit of independence of individual personality and personal freedom, and the latter, a pursuit of political liberty and civic democratic rights.

Key words: relationship between collective and individual, principle of freedom, holism, essentialism, non-rationalism