Xiong Shili

Xiong Shili was born in 1885 in Huanggang, Hubei, China. His father was a cotton dyer who went bankrupt due to the influx of foreign textiles. Xiong left home at the age of 15 and joined the anti-Manchu revolution. He became a member of the Communist Party of China in 1921 and studied philosophy at Peking University under Liang Qichao and Zhang Taiyan. He was influenced by both Western and traditional Chinese philosophy, especially Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism. He wrote his major work, A New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness (新唯識論, Xin Weishi Lun), in 1932, which was a critique of the Buddhist consciousness-only theory and a reconstruction of the Confucian concept of reality and function. He argued that reality is the ultimate principle of the universe, which manifests itself in various functions according to the conditions. He also criticized the worship of Mao Zedong and the alienation of the Communist Party from the masses. He was denounced as a rightist and expelled from the party in 1957. He was rehabilitated in 1978 and died in Shanghai in 1968. He was regarded as one of the most influential and respected intellectuals of modern China.