Biography个人经历

Professor Tu Weiming was born in 1940 in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China. (Ancestors’ home in Nanhai, Guangdong Province). He is a preeminent Chinese scholar, a representative figure of contemporary Neo-Confucianism, and a crucial practitioner on the research and transmission of Confucian culture. His broad scope of academic interests, his sympathetic concern towards both empirical and transcendental knowledge, his retrospection and strategic vision of human civilization, made him one of the most insightful and influential thinkers in the world.

For over 50 years, Professor Tu Weiming has devoted himself to the interpretation of Confucian Classics, to the evaluation of Confucianism from a perspective of cultural diversity in the world, and to the revival of Chinese culture by a creative transformation of the ancient tradition. The intellectual activities and academic discourses advocated by him, such as “Cultural China”, “Civilizational Dialogue”, “Reflections on the Enlightenment”, and “the Third Phase of Confucianism”, have rendered profound influence in the international circle of thoughts. Professor Tu Weiming defined that Chinese culture inherently possesses the capacity of assimilation and compatibility with other cultures, and its unique quality resides in “Learning to be Human”. His concept of Cultural China is beyond the confines of nationality and ethnicity, laid the theoretical foundation for the research on Chinese identity and its cultural characters. He himself practiced the teaching of Confucian Learning, pioneered a new direction to interpret Confucian ethics, and developed new ideas of Confucian Philosophy of Mind from the perspectives of epistemology and scientific rationality. The novel dimension of thoughts, “Spiritual Humanism”, is an universal ethic initiated by Professor Tu Weiming, endeavoring to provide metaphysical resources and solutions to various Big Problems in human society and to construct a harmony between body and soul, self and society, human and nature, secularity and divinity, is vitally important for the overall welfare of humanity in the 21^st century.

Professor Tu Weiming began his school year in 1945 in Shanghai, China. His family moved to Taiwan in 1949. In 1951, he graduated from primary school and entered Jinaguo Middle School in Taipei, Taiwan. He started reading Confucian Four Classics since he was 15 years old, then he followed and inherited the Neo-Confucian tradition from a group of famous scholars: Mou Zongsan (1909-95), Tang Junyi (1909-78) and Xu Fuguan (1903-82), etc.. He received his BA in 1961, from the Department of Chinese, Tunghai University, Taiwan. Next year, Sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institute’s Scholarship, He went to Harvard University, learned from Talcott Parsons, W. C. Smith and Robert N. Bellah, etc., and received his MA in East Asian Studies in 1963 and his PhD in History & East Asian Languages and Civilizations in 1968.

After graduation from Harvard University, Professor Tu Weiming taught at Princeton University (1967-71) and the University of California, Berkeley (1971-81). He became a Harvard Professor in both Chinese History & Philosophy studies and Religious Studies in 1981. Later, he served as the Chairman of Harvard Research Committee of Religious Studies (1984-87), the Chairman of the Department of East Asian Languages ​​and Civilizations (1986-89), and the Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute (1996-2008). Professor Tu Weiming is currently the Peking University Chair Professor (2010- ), the Founder and Director of the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies (IAHS, 2010- ), the Director of World Ethics Center of Peking University (2010- ), and the Chair Professor of Harvard-Yenching Chinese History, Chinese Philosophy, and Confucianism Studies of Harvard University (1999- ). So far, Professor Tu Weiming has supervised over 30 PhD and Post-doctorate students and educated thousands of undergraduates all over the world. As a visiting professor, Tu Weiming taught Chinese intellectual history, Chinese philosophy, and Confucianism at Tunghai University (Taiwan, 1967-68), Beijing Normal University (China, 1980), Peking University (China, 1985), National Taiwan University (Taiwan, 1988), École des Hautes Études in Paris (France, 1989). He also holds honorary professorships from many universities and institutes in China: Renmin University, Zhejiang University, Sun Yat-sen University, Jinan University, Suzhou University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, etc.

Professor Tu Weiming also actively participated in various academic organizations. He is the Director of the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Peking University, the Vice Chairman of International Confucian Association, member of China Council of American Academic Research Society, member of American China Studies Institute, advisor of the East Asia Group of Wilson Center in Washington, overseas advisor of Confucian Ethics Group of Singapore Curriculum Development Office, advisor of the Society of Chinese American Social Science Professor, advisor of the Contemporary China Studies Center of the City University of Hong Kong, etc.. Other academic positons Professor Tu Weiming holds include: the Chair of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy at Academia Sinica, Taiwan; the Honorary Chair of the Center for Confucian Entrepreneurs and East Asian Civilizations at Zhejiang University, the Chair of the International Ma Yifu Humanities Center at Zhejiang University, the Chair of the Humanities Committee of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB), and an Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University. Professor Tu Weiming is on the editorial boards of several academic journals: the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (US), Philosophy East and West (US), Yenching Journal of Chinese Studies (China), Dao (China), Chinese History of Philosophy (China), Humanity Forum (China), Asia Culture (Singapore), the 21^st Century (Hong Kong), CUHK Journal of Humanities (Hong Kong), the Contemporary Era (Taiwan), Journal of Humanity (Malaysia), etc..

Professor Tu Weiming is the author of Neo-Confucian Thought in Action: Wang Yangming’s Youth (1976), Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness (1976, rev.1989), Humanity and Self-Cultivation (1979), Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation (1985), Way, Learning, and Politics: Essays on the Confucian Intellectual (1993), Confucianism (2008), the Global Significance of Concrete Humanity: Essays on the Confucian Discourse in Cultural China (2010), Confucianism in the 21^st Century (2014), etc.. His five-volume Anthology of Essays were published by Wuhan Press in 2011, eight-volume series of Collected Writings were published by SDX Joint Publishing Company in 2013, and the entire Collected Works began to be published by Peking University Press from 2013.

Professor Tu Weiming has given keynote addresses or plenary session presentations at several world congresses of the humanities and social sciences. He was invited by the former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan to join the Group of Eminent People to promote the dialogue among civilizations in 2001. He delivered a speech to the Executive Board of UNESCO about Civilizational Dialogue in 2004. Other meetings he made speeches include the XVIII World Congress of Philosophy (Boston, 1998), the Beijing Forum (Beijing, 2004, 2005), the World Congress of the History of Religion (Tokyo, 2005), the Maimonides Endowed Lecture in the XXII World Congress of Philosophy (Seoul, 2008), the 16th World Congress of Ethnology and Anthropology (Kunming, 2009), the 24th World Congress of the Philosophy of Law (Beijing, 2009), and the 3^rd Global Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations (Vienna, 2013), etc..

For his great contributions to humanity, Professor Tu Weiming was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1988- ), an Executive Member of the Federation of International Philosophical Societies (FISP, 2008- ), and a Titular Member of the International Institute of Philosophy (IIP, 2010-, representing China).

He has been awarded honorary degrees from King’s College in London (UK), Lehigh University (US), Grand Valley (Michigan) State University (US), Soka University (Japan), Shandong University (China, the highest honor confirmed by the State Council of the PRC), Tunghai University (Taiwan), Lingnan University (Hong Kong), Macau University (Macau), etc. He is also the recipient of the Grand Prize of International T’oegye Society (Korea, 2001), the second Thomas Berry Award for Ecology and Religion (UN, 2002), Life Achievement Award by the American Humanist Society (US, 2007), the first Confucius Cultural Award (China, 2009), and the first Brilliance of China Award (China, 2013), Global Thinkers Forum “Prominence of Cultural Understanding”（Greece，2013）, China Cultural Figure（Macau，2014）etc.

 

杜维明教授，男，1940年2月生于中国云南昆明，祖籍广东省南海县西樵乡，中国著名学者，当代新儒家代表，研究和传播儒家文化的重要人物。杜维明先生宽广的学术视野、对现实世界与超越信仰的同情式关怀、以及对人类文明的反思和展望，使他跻身当代最有洞见和影响力的思想家之一。

五十多年来，杜维明先生致力于阐释儒家经典，同时从世界多元文化的角度审视儒家传统，努力通过对传统的创造性转化来复兴中国文化。先生倡导的“文化中国”、“文明对话”、“启蒙反思”、“儒学第三期”等知性实践和学术论域，在国际思想界产生了广泛而深远的影响。先生定义了中华文明具有“学做人”的文化特质及兼容并蓄的文化能力，先生描绘的“文化中国”理念，超越了地域与政治版图的局限，为研究中华民族的自我认同及文化特征提供了理论基础。先生践行了儒家“做学问”的精神与方法，为儒家伦理开辟了新思路，为儒家的“心学”在认识论及科学理性领域提供了新观点。先生所倡导的“精神性人文主义”，内涵普世伦理和继绝开平，寻求身体与心灵、个人与社会、人类与自然、世俗与神性之间的调和，努力从形而上的高度为人类社会发展的种种重大问题提供指导和解决之道，对于二十一世纪的整体人类福祉至关重要。

先生1945年在上海入小学，1949年随家迁台湾，1951年毕业于台北女师附小，进入台北建国中学读初中，1954年升入高中，十五岁即读《四书》，师从牟宗三、唐君毅、徐复观等名家研习儒家文化，1961年毕业于台湾东海大学中文系，翌年获哈佛燕京学社奖学金前往美国深造，1963年获哈佛大学东亚研究硕士学位，1968年获美国哈佛大学历史及东亚语言与文明系博士学位，受教于帕森斯（Talcott Parsons）、史密斯（W. C. Smith）和贝拉（Robert N. Bellah）等著名学者。

先生从哈佛大学毕业后，1967年到1971年执教于美国普林斯顿大学，1971年到1981年执教于加州大学伯克莱分校，1981年任哈佛大学中国历史和哲学教授，1984年到1987年出任该校宗教研究委员会主席，1986年到1989年任东亚语言和文明系主任，1996年到2008年任哈佛燕京社社长。先生2010年回国，现任北京大学人文讲席教授，北京大学高等人文研究院院长、北京大学世界伦理中心主任，兼任哈佛燕京中国历史及哲学与儒学研究讲座教授。迄今为止，先生在各大学指导和培养的博士生和博士后已达三十多位，教育过来自世界各地的数千名大学生。作为客座教授，先生曾经在台湾东海大学（1967-1968）、北京师范大学（1980）、北京大学（1985）、台湾大学（1988）、巴黎高深学院（1989）等大学讲授中国思想史、中国哲学史和儒家哲学。先生曾受聘为中国人民大学、浙江大学、中山大学、暨南大学、苏州大学、北京外国语大学、上海社会科学院、长江商学院等院校和机构的荣誉教授。

先生以传承儒学为己任，心怀天地生民，经常活跃于各类学术团体之中，现担任北京大学高等人文研究院院长、国际儒学联合会副会长、美国学术联会中国委员会委员、美国中国研究学会理事、华盛顿威尔逊中心东亚组顾问、新加坡课程发展署儒家伦理组海外顾问、中国旅美社会科学教授协会顾问、香港城市大学当代中国研究中心顾问等；先生担任的其它学术性职务还包括：台湾中央研究院中国文哲研究所通信研究员和咨询委员会召集人，浙江大学儒商与东亚文明研究中心名誉主任，浙江大学国际马一浮人文研究中心主任，长江商学院人文委员会主席、上海交通大学顾问教授等。同时，先生还担任多家学术刊物的顾问或编委，诸如《哈佛亚洲研究学报》（美国）、《东西哲学》（美国）、 《燕京学报》（中国）、《道》（中国）、《中国哲学史》（中国）、《人文论丛》（中国）、《亚洲文化》（新加坡）、《二十一世纪》（香港）、《中文大学人文学报》（香港）、《当代》（台湾）、《人文杂志》（马来西亚）等。

先生的代表性学术出版物包括：《行动中的新儒家思想：青年王阳明》（Neo-Confucian Thought in Action: Wang Yang-ming’s Youth，1976年）、《中庸洞见》（Centrality and Commonality, An Essay on Confucian Religiousness，1976年；修订版，1989年）、《仁与修身》（Humanity and Self-Cultivation，1979年）、《儒家思想：以创造性转化为自我认同》（Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation，1985年）、《道、学、政——论儒家知识分子》（Way, Learning, and Politics: Essays on the Confucian Intellectual，1993年）、《儒教》（Confucianism, 2008年）、《具体之仁的全球意义》（Global Significance of Concrete Humanity: Essays on the Confucian Discourse in Cultural China，2010年）、《二十一世纪的儒学》（2014年）、五卷本《杜维明文集》（武汉出版社，2001年）、八卷本《杜维明作品系列》（三联书店，2013年）等；从2013年起，《杜维明全集》将由北京大学出版社陆续出版。

先生曾多次在人文与社会学科的世界级大会上做主旨演讲或全体会议演讲。2001年，应联合国前秘书长科菲•安南的邀请，参加为推动文明对话而组建的“世界杰出人士小组”。2004年，向联合国教科文组织执行局发表关于文明对话的讲演。先生出席并发表演讲的其它大会还有：第十八届世界哲学大会（波士顿，1998年）、北京论坛（北京，2004年、2005年）、世界宗教史大会（东京，2005年）、第二十二届世界哲学大会“迈门尼德讲座”（首尔，2008年）、国际人类学与民族学联合会第十六届大会（昆明，2009年）、国际法哲学联合会第二十四届大会（北京，2009年）、联合国文明联盟第三次年会（维也纳，2013年）等。

由于先生对人文领域的突出贡献，1988年当选美国艺术与科学院院士， 2008年当选为国际哲学联合会（FISP）执行委员，2010年当选为国际哲学学院（IIP）荣誉院士（代表中国）。授予先生荣誉博士学位的大学有：伦敦国王学院（英国）、礼海大学（美国）、密歇根大峡谷大学（美国）、创价大学（日本）、山东大学（中国）、东海大学（台湾）、岭南大学（香港）、澳门大学（澳门）等。先生获得的其它奖项还有：第九届国际“李退溪研究奖”（韩国，2001年）、第二届“托马斯•伯利生态宗教奖”（联合国，2002年）、美国人文学者协会颁发的“人文终身成就奖”（美国，2007年）、首届“孔子文化奖”（中国，2009年）、首届“中华之光——传播中华文化年度人物”奖（中国，2013年）、全球思想家论坛“文化理解杰出成就奖”（希腊，2013）、“中华文化人物”（澳门，2014）等。