On the Historical Status of Sun Yat-sen's World View in the Development of Chinese Philosophy

It is, to begin with, a normal and commonplace phenomenon of scholarly discourse that people would hold varying viewpoints when they come to study and discuss the world view of great historical figures such as Sun Yat-sen. What is noteworthy, however, is that if such studies stem from different points of departure, then there are bound to be major differences in their various conclusions. What should we take as a point of departure in our study of Sun Yat-sen's world view? Should it be the ready-made conclusions of the "classical authors" of Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought? Or should it be the realities of Sun Yat-sen's world view, serving as an object of [the study of] history of philosophy? This is the first major problem to be resolved in the area of methodology. Concretely speaking, was Sun's world view materialist or idealist? On this question Comrade Mao Zedong once made a pertinent evaluation. He said: "The cosmology contained in the Three People's Principles is what is called the minsheng (people's...