Abstract

In treatments of the relation of Chinese thought to pragmatism, pragmatism most commonly refers to the philosophy of John Dewey, and such treatments look to the Chinese past, whether recent or distant, not to contemporary Chinese philosophy. Nearly a century ago Dewey became the foremost exponent of pragmatism, both in the English-language world and also around the globe. In China, Dewey’s student Hu Shi was a seminal figure in the New Culture Movement. Dewey himself had a direct effect on Chinese intellectuals during the just over two-year period that he spent lecturing and teaching in China between May 1919 and July 1921, his most immediate impact being in the arena of education.1 Beyond studies of...