Acceptance Speech of an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Taiwan University

I'm grateful to my alma mater for bestowing upon me such a huge honor.  It's humbling to hear all the praises showered on me by the Chancellor and I don't feel that I deserve them.  I graduated from Taiwan University, and to receive an affirmation here after my life went through decades of storminess and turbulences, I feel like a wayward son coming home to the caress of my family.  It's a feeling of joy, comfort, confirmation, and warmth.  I want to express my gratitude once more.

As mentioned earlier, I weathered many storms in the last decades of my life.  These storms impacted my journey of teaching and researching, and flew across my path of social concern.  I survived these storms and will continue to move forward.  I will talk about certain issues from my past experiences and also share with you my realization and expectation.  I will use "Thoughts on the Path of Academic Studies and Social Concern" as the topic of my speech, and I look forward to your feedback.

Let me first talk about academic studies.  I feel that the "pursuit of truth" should always be the goal of any academic endeavor.  I have repeatedly emphasized that it's important to come up with "new creations" in the academic realm.  While there is nothing wrong about seeking something new, the question is how it can be achieved.  The root of the issue is in the pursuit of truth.  How do we pursue truth?  From the standpoint of social sciences, we need to sincerely care about our social problems, and not just to find a topic to write an essay on.  This is what the Confucian classic, the Golden Mean, stressed: "Follow virtue, engage in study."  In order to explore the relationship between social problems and theories, we must genuinely care about the society and study the source of human behavior and social functions through observation of our environment and its impact.  There is yet another layer of interpretation by the Golden Mean:  "To maximize the scope by addressing the minute".  I can summarize this as follows: In terms of direction, our studies should combine the humanitarian spirit and the scientific spirit.  In terms of method, we should combine the observation on a large scale with the exploration of the details.  Through this kind of pursuit of truth, "new creations" will happen naturally without trying.

Next, I will talk about social concerns.  I would like to stress "achieving public," meaning "pursuing the public spirit."  In recent years I have been worried about the degradation of value and the degree of irresponsibility driven by the masses in our society.  We often heard, "I can do whatever I want as long as I like it."  With this kind of value system, there has been less and less respect for the right of others, and we see our society filled with chaos, greed, superficiality, and utilitarianism.  I am reminded of what Mencius said, "It's inhuman to lack compassion; it's inhuman to lack a sense of shame; it's inhuman to lack politeness and courtesy; it's inhuman to lack a sense of right and wrong."  How do we deal with this kind of phenomenon?  I believe that we must heighten the public spirit and I want to stress solutions: In terms of social order and moral foundation, we should pursue personal freedom and value.  On the basis of social equality and harmony, we should promote the prosperity and the progress of the society as a whole.  We need to raise ourselves and stop sinking deeper.

Lastly, I like to emphasize that we need to seek honesty and sincerity in our daily life by committing ourselves to doing good deeds and adhering to righteousness without deviation.  Nowadays we rarely hear about "moral character," but I cannot stress enough how important it is to value our moral character by doing what we should do and avoid what we should not do.  Only then, we can achieve what Mencius professed: "Wealth cannot corrupt us; poverty cannot sway us; power cannot bend us."

The promotion and practice of any high ideals and values require the hard work and dedication of the intellectuals.  The Taiwan University is the highest academic institution of our country, and to be a member of this great institution, we must aim high and broaden our horizon; we must insist on our principles, shoulder our responsibilities, and give it our all as long as we live.