Traverses between cognitive consonance and existential crisis : notes on Jiang Menglin’s pragmatist notion of Rensheng Guan and his views on suicide from 1919

Vrhovski, Jan (author)

The article explores Jiang Menglin’s philosophy of life and his notion of rensheng guan (“view on life”) in the period between his studies in the USA and the year of the May Fourth events in 1919. In the first part, the paper traces the origins of Jiang’s idea back to the then-prevalent version of pragmatism propagated by John Dewey and other pragmatist thinkers gathered at Columbia University, while in the subsequent parts it aims to illuminate the later developments of Jiang’s own version of pragmatism in the context of the May Fourth intellectual discourse. While the article aims at presenting a positive outline of Jiang’s philosophy, it also endeavours to expose its less explicit aspects through its apophatic (exposition by negation or denial) expositions in Jiang’s writings from the period. Finally, it focuses on Jiang’s contributions to the debate on suicide that developed after Lin Deyang’s suicide in November 1919.

• Language: English
• Keywords: rensheng guan, Jiang Menglin, pragmatism, May Fourth Movement, suicide
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: Str. 9-27
• Numbering: 3
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-134998
• UDC: 165.74:13(510)
• ISSN on article: 2464-6830
• DOI: 10.14712/24646830.2022.1
• COBISS.SI-ID: 97702147
• Publication date in RUL: 16.02.2022

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Acta Universitatis Carolinae. Philologica
• Shortened title: Acta Univ. Carol., Philol.
• Publisher: Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Nakladatelství Karolinum
• ISSN: 2464-6830
• COBISS.SI-ID: 527044121

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 15.02.2022

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: rensheng guan, Jiang Menglin, pragmatizem, četrtomajsko gibanje, samomori

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: N6-0161
• Name: Humanizem v medkulturni perspektivi: Evropa in Kitajska