The Center for Political Thought
Assembling scholars from politics, history, philosophy, law, and society, the purpose of the Center for Political Thought is to explore the political thought across different temporal and spatial contexts. The Center is devoted to the intellectual-historical and theoretical enquiries with two particular emphases: 1. Explore the history and inheritance of political thought, and conduct comparative studies in this field; 2. Analyze and clarify important concepts of political practice, such as democracy, freedom, equality, justice, and human rights, and develop normative, applied political theory. Besides planning research themes in these directions, we work with experts from different countries and fields to encourage the studies on political thought in Taiwan. The Center also hosts symposiums on public issues.
Since 2020, the Center has been in charge of the publication of Societas: A Journal for Philosophical Study of Public Affairs, a leading research journal on political thought in Taiwan and Sinophone academia. Dr. I-Chung Chen is the active editor-in-chief and Prof. Chu-Yang Wei ( Department and Graduate Institution of Political Science, National Chung-Cheng University) is the active executive editor.
Executive Officer & Research Fellow
Research Fields: Contemporary Political Philosophy
Main Research Directions
The long-term aim for the research center is to explore the complexities of modernity. This includes a wide range of research topics, from the origin and development of Western modernity to its transmission to and impacts on the wider parts of the world. In order to fulfill the research target, the center has three active research directions:
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Explain the inheritance of Western political, social, and legal thought, especially focusing on the dialectical development of modernity and political thought since the 17th century.
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Discuss the development of political and social concepts in China and Taiwan since the second half of the 19th century. In particular, the center’s researches look at the development of conceptions of rights and civic consciousness both in the West and in Taiwan, as well as revolutions and constitutional theories arising from the revolutions in the West and China.
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Explore the changes and construction of political value in contemporary democratic societies.
Current Research Projects
The Center is conducting five research themes in light of the studies of modernity:
1. “Political and Moral Values Survey in Taiwanese Society”
This project combines normative theory and empirical studies. It reconstructs the moral foundations of Taiwanese citizens through nationwide telephone interviews. Having completed the moral foundations survey, the project then seeks to analyze the moral consciousness on the ground of political theories. The result helps us to learn how Taiwanese people understand the relationship between the government and themselves. Moreover, by discussing Taiwanese people's understandings of this issue, the project investigates their expectations of the government and probes whether their understanding of Taiwanese democracy can be categorized as liberal politics.
2. History of Political Thought”
The history of Western political thought is essential for the research of political thought. Novel questions will inevitably emerge, prompting contemporary scholars to re-examine traditional intellectual resources and explore their complexity. In addition, with accelerating pace of globalization and the development of cross-disciplinary methodologies in contemporary scholarships, the academia has come to realize that the development of ideas and values is not a static “challenge and response” but rapid exchange, recombination, and local articulation. This project intends to explore the development and the future of political thought from global and comparative perspectives.
3. Contemporary Sinophone Thought: New Perspectives and Debates
With the resurgence of populism in recent years, the political and economic situations across the globe, and particularly in East Asia, have become increasingly unstable. In a broad sense, Chinese-speaking societies and East Asia are also exposed to multiple challenges in this context, such as the competition for hegemony between China and the United States, the expansion of China’s authoritarian capitalism, the challenges facing liberal democracy, and the revival of narrow-minded nationalism. This project aims at plural, critical and in-depth analyses of influential contemporary thoughts in the Sinophone world, as well as their connections with social reality.
4. The Great Transformation of Hong Kong: An Interdisciplinary Research
Since 2019, Hong Kong has been through a dramatic transformation. The Anti-Extradition Bill Movement in 2019 and the implement of national security law in 2020 has totally changed the political institution and the spirit of Hong Kong. It seems that, in history, there is no capitalist and free city that has ever changed so dramatically and completely. Thus, the politics and society of “New Hong Kong” and the diasporas who could not accept it are deserved to be explored. This project aims to use interdisciplinary perspectives and methods to promote Hong Kong research. Since 2023, the center also cooperates with Nowhere bookstore to hold a series of public lectures especially in relation to Hong Kong.
5. AI Ethics and Political Theory
With the breakthrough of AI technology, the influence of AI on democratic politics is more and more apparent. However, in global academic communities, the development of AI ethics in political theory falls behind that in other fields of humanities and social sciences, like jurisprudence, sociology and STS. Starting from the Alignment Problem, this project intents to explore the challenge of AI to the legitimacy of current institutions and the practice of democratic polity. The Center will invite scholars from different disciplines and countries to deliver lectures and participate in colloquium or conference on AI-related topics.