Overview
Hu Shi (1891–1962) was a Chinese liberal pragmatist, vernacular literature reformer, and student of John Dewey at Columbia. A leader of the May Fourth New Culture Movement, he championed experimentalism, critical thought, and writing in baihua. Later he served as diplomat and academic in Taiwan. Handbook dates: 1891–1962. He sought gradual reform against both Confucian freeze and revolutionary dogma.
Main ideas
Bold hypothesis and careful verification—Deweyan method—should guide scholarship and politics. Literary revolution replaces dead classical prose with living vernacular for democracy of letters. Tolerance and skepticism check ideological fanaticism. Reconstructing civilization means critical sorting of China’s past, not wholesale iconoclasm or worship. Pragmatism judges ideas by consequences for life. Science’s spirit matters more than imported slogans.
Major works
- Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy
- Essays on vernacular literature
- Collected lectures on pragmatism
- Autobiographical writings
Legacy
Hu Shi shaped modern Chinese language reform, liberal intellectual culture, and academic Sinology. Communists attacked him; liberals reclaim him. He remains May Fourth’s pragmatic face.