On Tan's Characteristic Philosophy

Tan Si-tong is a renowned thinker of the late Qing, he is a historical person with political and academic charm. He is a great patriot and sacrificed his life in the "Wu—Xu" movement. As a thinker and statesman Tan Sitong is called"a comet in thinker's circle during the late Qing period", he takes the Chinese traditional culture as the foundation , absorbs outstanding achievements from the Chinese and the western cultures , and finally has formed his own unique philosophical system:"Ether—Kindheartedness". He melts philosophical thoughts and political thoughts together, and provides the spiritual weapons for the practice of emerging national bourgeoisie.The characteristic of Chinese philosophy is close to the social politics, which also is its merit, the philosophy in the modern times is especially so. The philosophers of the modern times are mostly combination of statesmen and thinkers, the characteristic of their philosophy which serves for politics is more obvious, Tan Sitong thought is also so. In order to seek the theoretical foundation for his own political reform activity, he accepted the concept of"ether" of modern times physics, and unified it with "Kindheartedness" of Chinese traditional Confucianism. He had constructed his philosophy system. The characteristic of Tan Sitong philosophical thought said from the political angle that, is the close union of his philosophy and political activities. He used his own philosophical thoughts as the theoretical foundation of the political reform and directly served for the political struggle of trans format ing reality. The crucial question of the Chinese society in modern times is "where will China go" . This question embodied by the culture is the relation of the Chinese learning and the western learning. Tan Sitong started from his aim that he wanted to innovate and save the nation, using the concept of "ether" of western learning to explain the "kindheartedness" of Chinese traditional Confucianism, and established the new "kindheartedness—learning"; using the Chinese...