State of the Field Report IV Contemporary Chinese Study of Mencius in Taiwan HUANG Chun-chieh (Junjie)∗

In this article, I shall review contemporary Chinese studies of Mencius in Taiwan. In order for this review to be more focused, I shall not attempt to include all the books and articles published on Mencius. Instead, I shall focus on materials that follow these two approaches: (1) philosophical and (2) intel-lectual-historical. Contemporary scholars who take the first approach see the Mencius as a philosophical text independent of social, political, and economic changes. Consciously or unconsciously, they assume that ideas in Mencius’ philosophical system are independent of these forces. Those who take the second approach examine Mencius ’ thought in historical and cultural context, and are particularly interested in the ways Mencius ’ thoughts are viewed in different historical and cultural backgrounds. Although these two approaches are methodologically different, they are also complementary. In the following, I shall examine some main studies done using these two different approaches, focusing on the main issues identified and main contributions made