Tang Shaojie was born in 1959. He graduated from Wuhan University and obtained his Master's degree in philosophy. He is now a professor of the Department of Philosophy at Tsinghua University.

His research fields are the history of Marxist philosophy, ‘Western Marxism’and the Masses' problem of “the Cultural Revolution” in China. He has been a visiting scholar of the Yencheng-Institute at Harvard University. He has won ‘the prize of excellent teaching for young teachers at Tsinghua University’ in 2002.

He has published three books: The Realization of Revolutionary Change in Philosophy, The Practical Philosophy and the Philosophical Practice, and the Falling of One Leaf Heralds the Autumn: the Hundred Day's Wudou of Tsinghua University in 1968. He has translated the following works: Culture and Value, The Metaphysical Horror, The Social Theory and Social Structure', and Game Rules. He co-authored five books, and published about fifty papers.