On the True and Future Intellectual: A Response to Cho-Yun Hsu and Beyond

Abstract

Facing a great era that promises unprecedented changes, intellectuals need to understand the relationship between time and space, society, and themselves. Intellectuals are broadly restricted and influenced by time, space, and social environments; however, it is also possible for them to transcend time, space, and society. Taking the historian Cho-yun Hsu as an example, this study elaborates and extends his viewpoints regarding intellectuals, and points out that unity of knowledge and practice is the spirit of intellectuals. True humanism is embodied in unbridled enthusiasm and sensitive insight into academics and life, with both values and depth of thought, and the conversion of knowledge into action to pass on and cultivate talents. Only by discovering and building upon real human nature and life can intellectuals achieve transcendence. To recognize the limits of the world and oneself, and to do everything possible to break or surpass these limits, is to face and create the future.

Keywords

• intellectual
• socially-constructed
• rural-urban relationship
• human geography
• time-space