[Editor’s Note:] Professor Liu was graduated with M. A. from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC, in 1959, and with Ph. D. from SIUC, Carbondale, IL., in 1966. He did his dissertation A Critical Study of Paul Tillich’s Methodological Presuppositions under the direction of Henry Wieman. He taught at Tung Hai University, Taichung, Taiwan, SIUC, and finally at the Chinese University of Hong Kong until his retirement in the late 90s. He is now a Senior Fellow and Chair Professor at the Institute of Literature & Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taipei. In addition to numerous articles to professional journals, his recent publication includes Understanding Confucian Philosophy: Classical and Sung-Ming (Praeger).

It is a great honor for me to write the Foreword for this volume as a former student and colleague of Professor Lewis E. Hahn at SIUC. Lewis had an early interest in literature and philosophy. He earned his MA degree in literature writing a thesis on Emerson at Texas; but he al-ready had some background in pragmatism before he went to study for his Doctorate in Philosophy at Berkeley, California. He was much influenced by Stephen C. Pepper; from then on, he has committed himself to a pragmatic-contextualistic perspective. In temperament, however, Lewis seems to be somewhat different from Pepper, who has a tendency to resolve complexities into simples, while Lewis tends to allow complexities to work out their own consequences. His scope is also much broader than Pepper’s, as he has developed an interest in non-Western philosophies. His lifelong mission is to develop American philosophy on the one hand, and comparative philosophy East and West on the other. The two sides seem to have been perfectly blended in him; and he has the unique capability to combine vision with action. As a result, looking back on his achievements, he may be said to have embodied the ideal of unity of opposites as described in Hegel’s dialectics, or intercomplementarity of Yin and Yang as stressed in I-Ching (The Book of Change).

Lewis has been very active both on the local and national levels since the mid-thirties. After teaching at the University of Missouri, he became Chairman of the Philosophy Department and Dean of Arts and Sciences at Washington University, St. Louis; he has held a number of offices with the American Philosophical Association, and edited the Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vols. XXXII through XXXIX. But Lewis’ dreams would not have come true had he not been persuaded by Willis Moore to move from Washington University to SIUC in 1963.

On the side of American philosophy he helped develop the John Dewey Project, which has become the best of its kind in the United States. On the side of comparative philosophy he developed a graduate program with national ranking in no time. With the help of William H. Harris, he recruited students all over the world, especially from the East. At one time, eight Chinese graduate students were awarded fellowships or assistantships by the University. This remarkable phenomenon is often jokingly referred to as "the Chinese Connection" of the department!

In 1966-67, he was named "Man of the Year in Philosophy" in the Directory of American Philosophers. Although Carbondale is located in the rural area of Illinois, yet SIU’s Department of Philosophy has be-come a gathering place for international students. As Lewis reminisced, "Southern Illinois University was fortunate to have for a time what Professor Y. P. Mei called the largest collection of able Chinese graduate students to be found anywhere." Now they are teaching Chinese and comparative philosophy in the States, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, and other places, as is evidenced by the receptions Lewis enjoyed in his tours to the East.

Furthermore, Paul A. Schilpp with the Library of Living Philosophers came to SIUC in the fall of 1965. When Schilpp retired in the 80s, it is unanimously agreed that Lewis is the best person, the ideal choice to succeed Paul to direct the project. Now the project is going strong, Lewis is going strong; he is approaching his nineties, and is ready to march into the twenty-first century.

Finally, I would like to say a few words about his great friendship with my former teacher, Professor Thomé H. Fang, whom he first met at Washington University in 1960. Afterwards, they met at various philosophy meetings--e.g., the East-West Philosophers’ Conferences in Honolulu in 1969--had some good discussions. They also corresponded on recommendations Professor Fang wrote for various of his students who were interested in doing graduate work in philosophy at SIUC. Another eminent Chinese philosopher who wrote recommendations to Lewis for some of his students was Professor T’ang Chün-i of New Asia College, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who also happened to be a student of Fang’s while he taught in Nanking. Lewis is a great admirer of Professor Fang, saying that Fang certainly would be a candidate for LLP if more of his works had been translated into English. He was asked to deliver the Keynote Address to the First International Symposium of the Philosophy of Thomé H. Fang, in commemoration of the 10th Anniversary of Fang’s passing, held August 15-18, 1987, Taipei; he finds great affinities between contextualism and Chinese philosophy.

Now you can see that it is by no means an accident that the largest foreign students group in the SIUC Philosophy Department is made of the Chinese students. Currently Professor Fang is studied on Mainland China as an eminent contemporary Confucian philosopher, as he urged us to revive the spirit of sheng-sheng (creative creativity) as set forth in the Commentaries of the I-Ching by Confucius and his followers. Incidentally my book on Confucian philosophy, the first of its kind, writing on the theme from a contemporary Confucian perspective, is published in hardback by Greenwood and in paperback by Prager in 1998. 1 certainly would not have been able to do this without the training received from SIUC. With humbleness and gratitude I am writing this Foreword for Lewis’ book on American and comparative philosophy to be published by the Thomé H. Fang Institute on the Ninetieth Anniversary of his Birthday in 1998.

Shu-hsien Liu, Ph.D.

Chair Professor in Chinese Philosophy

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

1998