Hu Shi, the Chinese pragmatist, was educated in China, at Cornell University, and at Columbia University under John Dewey. He was successively professor, chancellor of Peking National University, ambassador to the United States, and president of Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan.

In 1916 he inaugurated the Literary Revolution in China by advocating the use of the vernacular style for writing instead of the formal, classical style, which, radically different from the spoken language, had become rigid and decadent. He succeeded in spite of strong opposition and thus set Chinese literature free. Since freedom of expression means also freedom of thought, the new literature led to the Intellectual Renaissance in China in 1917.

Hu did not claim to be a philosopher, but his own credo represented a new philosophy in China at the time. According to Hu Shi the universe, infinite in space and time, was not...