Page 180 - 2022(1) International Confusion Studies

Int. Confucian Stud. 2022; 1(1): 173–179

Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press
Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and
Culture (1)

https://doi.org/10.1515/icos-2022-2012

“Key concepts in Chinese thought and culture” refers to keywords or phrases that
the Chinese people have created or come to use and that are fundamentally
pertinent to Chinese philosophy, humanistic spirit, way of thinking, and values.
They represent the Chinese people’s exploration of and rational thinking about
nature and society over thousands of years. Having stood the test of time, they may
still be sources of inspiration for the progress of human civilization, even as sci-
ence and technology renew more rapidly than ever before, and as society becomes
ever more complex and changeable.
Since 2014, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP) has
organized more than 100 social science scholars, translators, and sinologists
to sort, explain, and translate these concepts into foreign languages. So
far 1000 of the concepts have been published in Chinese-English bilingual
format. We are going to reprint the English version of 15 concepts (respectively
from the fields of philosophy, literature and art, and history) in each issue.
Interested readers may access the full text of the published concepts at www.
chinesethought.cn.

1 History

1.1 Will of the People (民心)

This term refers to the evaluative judgment or view of the people in a country or
region, on an issue, phenomenon or incident which touches on their common
interest and which has broad societal meaning. Ancient Chinese often took
the “mandate of heaven” to be the basis and highest concept for the legitimacy
of political authority and for policymaking, but in fact they often regarded the

Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP), E-mail: icos@fltrp.com

Open Access. © 2022 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.