Sun Yat-sen
1866-1925 · Modern East Asian Thought · Prominent
Sun Yat-sen was the founding figurehead of the Chinese Republic, and three principles carried its revolution: nationalism, democracy, and the people's livelihood, which he cashed out as land reform and state-led development. He mixed Western constitutional thinking with Confucian ethics and rejected class war for cooperation between classes. He planned a staged road out of army rule and into elections.
Signature
The position Sun Yat-sen is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism
- Government
- Representative Democracy / Vanguardism
Positions on the 14 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Mechanistic (25 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Collectivism (16 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (25 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- mildly between Immanence and Transcendence (41 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- leans Mastery (14 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- mildly between Ends and Means (55 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- leans Militarism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Ignorance
- mildly leans Bondage (31 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- mildly between Uncertain and Certain (57 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- leans Local (22 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
6 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Sun Yat-sen refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Representative Democracy / Vanguardism
What is your ideal form of government? - Knowledge
- Pragmatic Test / Sense Experience
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Economy
- Developmentalism / Welfare Capitalism
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed / Collective Will
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Social Contract / Revolutionary
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Human Nature
- Evolved Animal / Innate Good
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Nation
What is your primary bond and loyalty?