The Transition of the Conception of Individual: An Important Issue in Studies on China's Modernity

doi:10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5579.2004.06.004

Abstract

Abstract:

The establishment of ideas about the individual's independence, freedom and rights in the intellectual and cultural world is an important aspect and mark of modernity, as well as a central topic in the Enlightenment world since Western modern times. Since China's modern times, the consciousness of individual emancipation requiring breaking through the bond of conventions and the consciousness of salvation in pursuit of a prosperous and strong nation by means of the individual's efforts to improve himself have prompted an initial formation of the modern conception on the individual in the elite intellectual world. Its content mainly covers two interlocked aspects. The one, based on humanism, is to demand human liberation, affirm human value and pursue autonomic and equal personality. The other, based on Western liberalism, is to demand human political liberty and democratic rights. In the former sense the modern Chinese conception of the individual is chiefly embodied in the idea of individual emancipation; in the latter the conception embraces such ideas as liberty, democracy and right internally, embodied in expressions of these ideas. It is helpful for a more profound understanding of the growth of modernity in China and its problems to sum up those intellectual resources.

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