Tu Wei-ming, The Confucian World

Text of Professor Tu's Address

TU WEI-MING is a Professor of Chinese History and Philosophy at Harvard University. He was born in Kunming, China and educated in Taiwan (B.A. at Tunghai University) and North America (M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard University). Professor Tu is currently interpreting Confucian ethics as a spiritual resource for the emerging global community. He assumed his tenure as the Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute in January 1996.

Before joining Harvard in 1981, Dr. Tu taught Chinese intellectual history at Princeton University (1967-71) and the University of California at Berkeley (1971-81). He has conducted research and given lectures on Confucian thought in China regularly since 1978.  In 1985, he was a Fulbright Research Scholar in China and was asked to teach "Confucian Philosophy" in the Department of Philosophy at Peking University. He also taught the modern transformation of Confucian humanism as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Philosophy and History at Taiwan University in the summer of 1988. He taught Neo-Confucian thought as a Visiting Professor at L’Ecole Practique des Haute Etudies in Paris in the winter of 1990. Invited by the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, he delivered 16 lectures under the general rubric of "A Confucian Critique of the Enlightenment Mentality" including the following topics: (1) modernity reconsidered; (2) the cultural implications of the rise of East Asia; (3) Confucian China and its modern fate; (4) on Confucian spirituality; (5) dialogue of civilizations; and (6) toward a global ethic. The lectures were given at New Delhi, Madras, Santineketan, Lucknow, and Vanarasi November 24 through December 14, 1995.

Professor Tu is the author of: Neo Confucian Thought: Wang Yang-ming's Youth; Centrality and Commonality; Humanity and Self-Cultivation; Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation; and Way, Learning, and Politics: Essays on the Confucian Intellectual.

Tu Wei-ming’s research interests are Confucian humanism, Chinese intellectual history, philosophies of East Asia and comparative religion. He is on the editorial boards of the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Asian Thought and Society, Philosophy East and West, Chinese Cultural Quarterly, The Twenty-First Century and Cultural China, Huaren Guanli Pinglun (Journal of Chinese Business Administration). He has served as Chair of the Committee on the Study of Religion and Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. He is currently chair of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica; vice chair of the Board of Directors of the International Confucian Association in Beijing; co-moderator of the Aspen Seminar on The Chinese in the Global Community; fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; member of the Advisory committee to the Program Committee of the American Philosophical Association; faculty advisor of the Singapore and Malaysia Association; member of the International Advisory Panel of Faculty of Arts and Sciences of the National University of Singapore; Board of Directors of the American Association for Chinese Studies; and member of the International Advisory Board of the book series "Global Encounter: Studies in Comparative Political Theory" (to be published by Rowman & Littlefield). He is also an interviewee of "Intercultural Visual Library of the Year 2000" that is sponsored by the UNESCO. He has published in Chinese and English.

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