Notable Chinese philosopher Li Zehou passed away at 7: 00 am on November 3rd, Colorado Time, at the age of 91, according to one of his students.
Mr. Li Zehou died at 7: 00 on Wednesday morning in a small town called Boulder, Colorado, USA, said Zhao Shilin, a famous sinologist.
A few years before his death, Li, one of the most influential thinkers in China in the 1980s, said that he missed his hometown in Ningxiang, Hunan as he moved to the United States in the 1990s. His works include Critique of Critical Philosophy, History of Modern Chinese Thoughts, History of Ancient Chinese Thoughts, History of Modern Chinese Thoughts, The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics, and Four Lectures on Aesthetics: Toward a Global Perspective.
In his talk with other scholars, Li once said, "China should not be afraid of Christian culture, but should tolerate it."
Li was born in June 1930 in Daolin, Ningxiang County, Changsha City, Hunan Province. He graduated from the Philosophy Department of Peking University in 1954. He became a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, an academic at the International Academy of Philosophy in Paris, and an honorary doctor of humanities from Colorado College. He became famous in the 1950s, for his aesthetic view of "unity of objectivity and sociality", which emphasized practice and "humanization". In the 1980s, Li constantly expanded his academic field and urged the ideological circle to make arduous progress on the path of enlightenment. While residing in the U.S., Li published The Contemporary Understanding of the Analects of Confucius and New Dreams of the Century.
In February 2010, the second edition of Selected Works of Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, the most authoritative worldwide literary theory anthology in the United States, included the second chapter "Form Layer and Primitive Accumulation" in Li's Four Lectures on Aesthetics. This collection of essays starts its selection from Plato's works until the present age. He was the first Chinese scholar to be included in this literary theory selection which has been dominated by western theorists.
- Translated by Oliver Zuo
