Abstract: Gu Jiegang puts forward a reconciliatory attitude towards"the new" and "the old" during the New Culture Movement. He advocates a harmonious theory to reconcile the old culture with the new one. He contends for a calm and steady way for the society to evolve purposefully, instead of isolating "the new" from"the old", or the radical dichotomy against the law of logic. He aims to prevent "new youth" from becoming old youth and "the new tide "from becoming the outdated. If we trace his path of thought, we can find that Gu bases some of his innovation on the doctrines of Zhang Shizhao and Hu Shi. In other words, Gu often has a new understanding of reconciliation on top of his traditional learning. As a participant in China’s New Culture Movement, Gu’s thoughts does enrich the ideological basis of the new culture.

Keywords: Gu Jiegang, new and old, reconcile, learning

Zhu Hongtao, PhD, teaches in College of Humanities at Changshu Institute of Technology, China.