Cai Yuanpei (1868-1940) e l’interpretazione delle radici filosofiche della Grande guerra

In 1918 the Chinese scholar Cai Yuanpei published a series of essays regarding the Great War. In one of such essays in Cai describes political and military actions taken by the main participants in the war as proof of influence or validity of three different philosophical theories, Nietzsche’s philosophy of power, Tolstoj’s Non-resistance and Kropotkin’s mutual aid, despite their explicit anarchic features. This paper analyses the essay step by step and tries to shed some light on the possible reasons for Cai’s interpretation of the philosophical causes of the Great War.