Chen Lai

Chen Lai was born in 1952, with ancestral roots in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, and is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Tsinghua University. His research has long focused on Confucian philosophy, Song-Yuan-Ming-Qing Neo-Confucianism, and modern Confucian philosophy. His writing is distinguished by the combination of intellectual history and conceptual analysis, attending both to textual scholarship and to the theoretical construction of Confucianism in a modern context. The library holds 22 of his works, including philosophical histories such as Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, The Realm of Being and Non-Being: The Spirit of Wang Yangming's Philosophy, and Zhu Xi's Philosophical World, as well as studies addressing contemporary Confucian questions, such as Research on Modern Confucian Philosophy and A Theory of Confucian Virtue. It also includes lecture notes such as Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi: Lectures on Pre-Qin Confucianism and textbooks such as A Course in the History of Song-Yuan-Ming Philosophy. These works reflect his sustained engagement in both scholarly research and teaching.