Wing-tsit Chan

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Professor Wing-tsit Chan (1901 - August 12, 1994) was one of the world's leading scholars of Chinese philosophy and religion, active in the United States.

Chan was born to a peasant family in rural K'ai p'ing, in the Toisan (Taishan) area of southern China. In 1916 he matriculated into Lingnan University (嶺南大學) near Canton, then still a secondary school known as Canton Christian College (格致書院), and enrolled as a graduate student at Harvard University in 1924. There he studied with Irving Babbitt, William Ernest Hocking, and Alfred North Whitehead, and was advised by James Woods, an eminent Sanskritist and translator of the Yoga Sutra. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy and Chinese Culture in 1929.

On his return to China in 1929, Dr. Chan received an appointment at Lingnan, which in 1927 had been reconstituted as Lingnan University, and served as its Dean of the Faculty from 1929 to 1936. In 1935 he was invited to come to the University of Hawai'i on a visiting appointment; in 1937 he moved to Honolulu and taught here until 1942. He then taught at Dartmouth College (1942-1966).

Dr. Chan was the author of A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, one of the most influential sources in the field of Asian studies, and of hundreds of books and articles in both English and Chinese on Chinese philosophy and religion. He was a leading translator of Chinese philosophical texts into English in the 20th century.

Dr. Chan died in Pittsburgh on August 12, 1994. He was the recipient of numerous academic honors and was a member of the Academia Sinica.