Thomé H. Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan Thought

In Thomé H. Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan Thought, King Pong Chiu discusses Thomé H. Fang and Tang Junyi, two of the most important Confucian thinkers in twentieth-century China, who appropriated aspects of the medieval Chinese Buddhist school of Huayan to develop a response to the challenges of ‘scientism’, the belief that quantitative natural science is the only valuable part of human learning and the only source of truth.

As Chiu argues, Fang’s and Tang’s selective appropriations of Huayan thought paid heed to the hermeneutical importance of studying ancient texts in order to be more responsive to modern issues, and helped confirm the values of Confucianism under the challenge of ‘scientism’, a topic widely ignored in academia.

King Pong Chiu, Ph. D. (2014) in Religions and Theology, University of Manchester, lectures on Chinese philosophy at Chi Lin Nunnery 志蓮淨苑, Hong Kong. His research interests are mainly Contemporary Neo-Confucianism and its relationship with Buddhism.

"The author covers a topic that has not been studied before in English,providing a useful introduction to the context and thought of both of its main subjects [...] This volume contributes to this topic by taking seriously Huayan Buddhism, which has generally been neglected in the study of twentieth-century China."
Erik Hammerstrom, Pacific Lutheran University, Journal of Chinese Religions 45, 2 (2017)