During the 20th-century Chinese revolution, L’Internationale was one of the most important political symbols. After the failure of the Paris Commune in 1871, Eugène Pottier wrote the poem titled “L’Internationale” which was published for the first time until 1887. It was set to music by Pierre Degeyter in 1888 and introduced into China from both France and the Soviet Union (USSR). Qu Qiubai and Xiao San made great contribution to the work of translation that influenced the official version in 1962. From a hymn for the International Workingmen’s Association to the revolutionary song of all the proletariats, L’Internationale was the historical witness of the National Revolution, the Chinese Communist Revolution and the Continuous Revolution, whose symbolic meanings were connected closely to the tensions between nationalism and internationalism.

There are many Chinese versions of The Communist Manifesto and all of them had problems with the translation of foreign concepts and words, which triggered debates for years. One of the most interesting questions in the debates on the translation of the Manifesto is how to translate (Ger.) Assoziation / “association” and how Marx understood this concept.

As a part of the geographical knowledge introduced by Matteo Ricci from the West into China at the beginning of the 17th century, the concept of “Asia” had undergone a cool reception for over three hundred years and did not become a common idea of world geography until the early 20th century when it was publicized by textbooks and other mass media. As the author points out, Asia is not merely a geographical concept, but also refers to history, culture, and politics. Although early Western missionaries and Chinese scholar-officials like Wei Yuan endowed Asia with a positive meaning as the origin of world civilization, from the mid-19th century on, Chinese intellectuals, out of a sense of crisis caused by the European invasion of Asia, tended to describe Asia as a backward continent subjugated by the white people. In the 1910s, against the background of Japan’s annexation of Korea, Asia was divided into two opposing parts, “the country invading other countries” (Japan) and “the countries being invaded by other countries” (India, Korea, and China). Along with the occupation of other Asian countries by Japan in the name of “the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” in the 1930s and 1940s, the concept of Asia also lost its charm among Chinese nationals.

Discussing the issues of “Asia,” Takeuchi Yoshimi’s discourse of “Overcoming Modernity” (近代超克) has received broad attention among the international community of scholars. Commentators try to identify the ideological elements of this discourse that, as they hope, could help to solve post-modern problems. After analysing Takeuchi’s understanding of the war and its context, this paper shows that his discourse of “overcoming modernity” has an anti-historical tendency, which stems from the ideological ambiguity of his attitude towards the question of who was responsible for the war.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, European investigations into Chinese geography underwent a process of change: firstly, from the wild imagination of the classical era to a natural perspective of modern trade, then historical interpretations of religious missionaries to the scientific mapping conducted by sovereign nation-states. This process not only prompted new production of maps, but also disseminated a large amount of geographical knowledge about China in massive publications. This has enriched the geographical vision of Chinese civilization while providing a new intellectual framework for Europeans to understand China. Concurrently, it has formed another route for the travel of knowledge and intercultural interactions between the East and the West. Those interactions between space and knowledge have been reflected in the production, publication and dissemination of numerous maps of China in early modern Europe.

The concepts of Minben 民本, Minbensixiang 民本思想, and Minbenzhuyi 民本主义 are rather popular in current Chinese discourse. However, “Minben” was hardly found in Chinese ancient literature as a noun. Around the year of 1916, “Minbenzhuyi” became widely accepted in Japanese intellectual circles, interpreted as one of the Japanese versions of democracy. In 1917, “Minbenzhuyi” was transferred to China as a loanword by Li Dazhao and developed into one of the Chinese definitions of democracy. Nevertheless, Chen Duxiu questioned the meaning of the term in 1919. It was not until 1922 did Liang Qichao bring Minbenzhuyi back into Chinese context and conduct a systematic analysis, which had a lasting impact on Chinese intellectual community. In the following 20 years, Minbenzhuyi was largely accepted in two different senses : 1) interpreted as Chinese definition of democracy; 2) specifically refers to the Confucian idea of “Minshiminting and Minguijunqing” (民视民听, 民贵君轻). Gradually, it became evident that Minbenzhuyi in China had grown distant from the meaning of democracy and returned to its traditional Confucian values.

In 1908, the first and second chapters of Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid were first translated into Chinese by Li Shizeng, greatly influencing Chinese anarchists. Li Shizeng followed Kropotkin’s scientific argument of anarchism and strengthened the viewpoint for praising “public” and suppressing “private”. When translating Kropotkin’s thoughts, Li Shizeng focused on political revolution, glossing over the criticism of the capitalist economy, and barely referenced Kropotkin’s original anarchist communist ideology.

Owing to Zhu Zhixin’s introduction and Liu Wendian’s translation, Japanese anarchist Kotoku Shusui’s On the Obliteration of Christ came to have a great impact on China’s Anti-Christian Movement following the May Fourth Movement. What these three texts oppose is not only Christian authority, but also political power. In a continuous line, these writings lay the basic framework for Chinese anti-Christian speech in the 1920s, as the combination of scientism and nationalism began to shape people’s perception of Christianity.

This paper examines the concept of Rendaozhuyi in Late Qing and Early Republican China. Appearing as early as 1903, Rendaozhuyi is the Chinese rendering of both humanism and humanitarianism. For the Chinese intellectuals during the Late Qing and Early Republican period, “rendao” itself represented a modern value of humanity and human dignity. In the wake of the Great War, Rendaozhuyi gained tremendous popularity among the May-Fourth scholars. Some of them held it up as a universal ideal and tool to critique Chinese tradition, while others respectfully disagreed, worrying it would undermine the collective morale of “strengthening the nation”. Finally, the late 1920s saw the rapid ebb of the discussions of Rendaozhuyi. Keywords: Rendaozhuyi, humanism, humanitarianism, conceptual history

This paper focuses on the change of the meaning of “gospel” in Chinese context since the 17th Century. In the late Ming dynasty, Catholic missionaries were the first to translate “gospel” into Chinese with their writings about the Bible. Then the term became intermingled with traditional Chinese belief of seeking blessings. After the ban on Christianity imposed by the Emperor Yong Zheng, Chinese Catholics hid their faith and disguised it as Buddhism, Taoism and folk religions. At the end of the 19th century, “gospel” was connected to colonialism and became a trigger for Sino-Western conflict. The critique of and hostility toward the term abruptly arose. In the 20th century, “gospel” turned into a new concept, which went beyond its religious connotation and gradually referred to all kinds of “good news”.

The conceptual changes of Jian儉 in the pre-Qin period were the results of changes in the social and political structure. It originally referred to Jian virtue, which was a kind of political norm of clan states. This required the aristocrats to be moderate in accordance with the patriarchal hierarchy and generously share their wealth with their own clansmen. The opposite of Jian virtue is Tan (貪greed) and Chi (侈extravagance). In the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, many states formed their politics based on ministerial families. The aristocrats glorified greed and extravagance as Fu (富riches), and stigmatized Jian virtue as Pin (貧poverty). After the collapse of the clan-based state order, the states in the Warring States Period gradually developed into territorial states, and the institutional political norm became a new, abstract concept, indicated by the compound Jian Yue (儉約economy) and was used to describe the consumption attitudes of individuals and families. Meanwhile, with the increase of social mobility, the pursuit of riches was highly popular in the ideological world. The new expression of “means-ends” advocated by Legalists, which stipulated that individuals and families acquire wealth through Jian Yue (economy), took shape and endures to this day.

This paper focuses on the change of the image of “mouse” which was transformed from the legend of Fifteen Strings of Cash to the other versions. The legend of Fifteen Strings of Cash, written by Zhu Suchen, was a story of the vindication of defendants in a court case and formed the basis for a series adaptations. The legend of Fifteen Strings of Cash provided a frame of imagination about the image of a “mouse”. Meanwhile, the adaptation of the legend in folk opera provided a more ethical narrative than the original. The folk versions not only strengthened the “evil” of the “mouse”, but also heightened the suffering of innocent scholars. In the contemporary versions after 1949, the “mouse” as an animal disappeared in the story, and Lou Ashu (“shu” means “mouse” in Chinese) became a pure villain in this play, which also symbolized “evil” and pointed to the feudal and backward old society.

This essay uses semiotics and complexity theory to examine processes of sign formation. Simplicity and complexity, construed as differences in configuration of elements, are then applied to sign formation. Sign formation is understood as the effort of one entity to gain the attention of another entity. Examples such as signs of wild animals also show that the signifying functions of signs always happen in time. Simplification of commercial signs can be interpreted as the use of lowest common denominators in human transactions. Analysis of interaction between large numbers of humans and behaviour shows simplification of sign formation and illuminates social-cultural and political processes including the dynamics of violence.

To arrive at a practical solution in the political problem, one must take the road of aesthetics because, in Schiller’s opinion, it is only through beauty that we arrive at freedom. This can only be demonstrated if we first know the principles by which reason is guided in political legislation; for, although in its aesthetic state human action is truly free and it is free to the highest degree from any constrictions, it is not, nevertheless, beyond laws. Reason and the illumination of the mind, Friedrich Schiller believes, are not enough to make the truth triumph and heal the political: an education of feeling is necessary. The education of feeling represents the most stringent necessity as it becomes both a means to render efficient the improvement of ideas and judgments in practical life, and a cause generating this improvement. For, any amelioration in the sphere of the political must have in view the ennoblement of the character, and the instrument most at hand to this aim is the art of the beautiful.Beauty is the common object of the two impulses or instincts (reason and experience) and is best expressed through the concept of play; it is only play that renders man complete and develops his double nature. Making the beautiful a mere play does not involve a degradation of beauty; restricting the beautiful, which is regarded as an element of culture, to mere play is not in contradiction with the dignity of beauty, but we must look at the idea of play as it was expressed by Johan Huizinga also, and see man as the homo ludens providing the art of life.

A challenge to scrutinize the intimate unity of the aesthetical and the ethical levels of the human beingness in Friedrich Schiller's theoretical writings makes the present essay's content. We approach a basic idea unfolding the creed of the eminent artist and philosopher in the great power of 'beauty' to activate and to enrich the value of 'humanness'. By articulating a conceptual apparatus modulated on the sensitive-rational becoming of human being, our attempt focuses on the meaningfulness of the 'moral living' through the 'art's experience', highlighting a peculiar state, designed by Schiller as "the most sublime humanity". The call for a philosophy of 'beauty' - including the moral dimension - remains a valuable learning to be disclosed, especially in times of spiritual disarray - as the present-days have many similarities with those of the end of the 18th century.

Since the first degrees of musicality of mankind, the music became a sphere of investigation for naturalists (Darwin), economists (Karl Bücher), philosophers (Spencer, Schopenhauer, Cioran), who tried to explain, through their theories, the process of the beginning and settlement of this phenomenon as well as its influence on the human being.Schopenhauer will consider art, and especially music, as the only liberating form from delusion and suffering, from the omnipotence will to live. Making a strange parallelism between music and the will to live, Schopenhauer will find between these two a report of identity: “the world is an incarnation of music as well as an incarnation of Will: There is no art besides music that expresses an ideal aspect of Will, the Will itself in its purest essence”.If at Schopenhauer the music expresses the Will itself in its purest essence, at Emil Cioran “the metaphysical madness of the musical experience… weakens the will to live and the vital main springs”.Through music Emil Cioran found the way to himself, to his ego and his profound musical nature.The moments of separating of the delusions world are for the human being moments in which the entire existence feels like a melody and all of the being’s sufferings assemble and melt into “a convergence of sounds, into a musical enthusiasm and into a warm and resonant universal community”, into a “sweet and rhythmic immateriality”.

In his writings on mnemonics, Bruno established a complex affinity between magic and Kabbalah on the one hand, and between Lullism and the art of memory on the other. The Nolan is no stranger to the hermetic text of the Renaissance, based on the Corpus Hermeticum and especially on the Kore Kosmu, which pursued value purification of exteriority through interiority.In The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, Bruno picks up on the hermetic exercise of pattern conversion, from the sense-related vices towards the reason-related virtues, operating thus a reorientation from the exterior toward the noetic interior. One recognized here the same technique Plato used in his Republic, when he amassed all the gods of Homer into one alone, the embodiment of Truth, Justice and Good.The purpose of The Expulsion dialogue is to grant a return to unity to the intellect. Thus, Bruno unveils the fact that the magical religion of the Egyptians becomes his own, seeking, by way of magical rituals, to attain divine loftiness, that condition in which things acquire their meaning and significance, making thus possible the acknowledgement of their existence.