Early life, education and career

Borned into a middle-class family in Tanghe County, Nanyang, Henan, China, Feng studied philosophy in th China Public School in Shanghai between 1912-1915. Then he continues his study in Chunghua University Wuhan, and Peking University between 1915 and 1918, where he was able to see philosphy in the western tradition.

Upon his graduation in 1918, he traveled to the United States in 1919, where he studied and got his PHD degree in philosphy at Columbia University. There at Columbia, he met may philosophers who were to influence his career and thought, including John Dewey, who became his teacher.

After receiving his doctor degree, Feng went back and teach at Chinese Universities including Jinan University, Yenching University, and Tsinghua University in Beijing.

He continued to live and write till 1990.

Feng's Philosophy and its significance

Feng wrote "A History of Chinese Philosophy", which was the first attempt in history to try to reintroduce the development and progress of chinese thinkings through a modern western approach. Though before him, Hu Shi, another great Chinese scholar at the time have also made similar attempts, it was not considered as accurate or reliable, since many of the sources are unidentifiable.

For his doctoral dissertation, Feng elaborated on a comparison between western and eastern philosophy. By comparing philosophers such as Plato, Immaneul Kant with ancient chinese thinkers such as Lao Zi, Zhuang zi, Mozi, he concluded that there are three categories of philosphy: Out-worldly, in-worldly, and the one in between. He believes that Confucianism is a balance between the outworld and inworld approach, which he later spent a majority of his time working on laying the foundation of what he called 新理学 （New rationalism).

The significance of Feng's work and contribution lies within his promotion and reintroduction of chinese traditional thinking in a period when most chinese scholars lost faith in them. The famous translator of Chinese philosophical texts, Wing-tsit Chan, summed up Feng’s contribution by saying: “At a time when Chinese intellectuals saw little value in the Chinese tradition, Professor Feng upheld it.”

Bibliography

https://iep.utm.edu/feng/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_Youlan

http://www.guoxue.com/master/fengyoulan/fyl16.htm

https://news.pku.edu.cn/xwzh/129-73835.htm