New Asia College The Chinese University of Hong Kong eNewsletter

The "Ch'ien Mu Lecture in History and Culture" aims to promote academic and cultural exchanges. Ever since its first appearance, the Lecture has been hosted each year by scholars with significant contributions and outstanding achievements in the various fields of Chinese cultural studies within and without the country. The lecture series has been receiving permanent endowment of the Mr. Chan Chi-sun Chinese Culture Fund since 2013.

The College was honoured to have invited Prof. Liu Xiaogan, Honorary Director of the Research Center for Chinese Philosophy and Culture of the Department of Philosophy of the CUHK and Distinguished Professor of the School of Philosophy of Beijing Normal University, to host the 31st Ch'ien Mu Lecture Series in History and Culture in mid-March 2018. Prof. Liu delivered three public lectures during this period. A banquet of two tables was specially held on 16 March at Yun Chi Hsien in honour of Prof. Liu, and the College to extend its warmest welcome to the speaker on this occasion.

The first lecture "Human Nature: From Mencius to Scientific Discovery" was held on 16 March at Sir Run Run Shaw Hall, CUHK, and was moderated by Prof. Henry Wong Nai-ching, Head of the College. It was widely known that, in Chinese Culture, Mencius championed fundamental goodness of human nature while Xunzi held the opposite. In fact, when it came to human nature, there existed a wide spectrum of questions that required consideration and exploration. This talk attempted to address and discuss these issues.

The second lecture "Is there such a thing called Human Nature? Normative and Empirical Approaches" was held on 17 March at the Lecture Theatre of the Hong Kong Museum of History, with Prof. Lau Kwok-ying of the Department of Philosophy of the CUHK as the moderator. Among the many important studies on Mencius' theory of human nature, the views of Mou Zongsan and those of Roger Ames represented two opposite understandings, which could serve as a starting point for our discussion. Finally, Prof. Liu, making reference to discoveries of modern scientific experiments, discussed how today's societies should understand and interpret Mencius' theory and what perspectives they should adopt as regards human nature.

The third lecture "Repaying resentment by Virtue or Straightforwardness? Confucianism and Daoism" was held on 19 March at Cho Yiu Conference Hall of CUHK, and was moderated by Prof. Wang Qingjie of the Department of Philosophy of the CUHK. Laozi once advocated an idea that one should return good for evil, while Confucius believed in repaying injustice with justice and returning good for good. At first glance, these two claims seemed contradictory and might even prove the conflicts between Daoists and Confucianists. Instead of directly judging who was right or wrong, this lecture attempted to explain why and under what contest both theories, apparently in opposition, were right and necessary, and elaborated on their values in modern societies.

The three lectures received an enthusiastic response from teaching staff and students within and without the university, and inspired fruitful discussion between the speaker and the audience during the Q&A session.