Two different approaches to philosophy a critical reflection on contemporary Chinese philosophy

ABSTRACT

By means of critical reflection on the current situation of Chinese philosophy, this article aims to clarify two different approaches to philosophy. One is for scholars to focus on original texts and thought tradition, concerned with interpretation and inheritance; even in this way, scholars can achieve theoretical innovation through creative interpretation. The other is for researchers to face up questions from academics and from reality, and mainly to do theoretical creation in philosophy on a profound theoretical background, strictly following academic norms and standards. For contemporary Chinese philosophy, the two approaches are indispensable, but the serious problem is that the first approach absolutely is dominant, but the second is too weak. The correct choice of Chinese philosophy should be to let hundreds of flower bloom, to let different approaches compete with each other, and to cooperatively establish the prosperity of contemporary Chinese philosophy.

KEYWORDS:

• Contemporary Chinese philosophy
• classic text studies
• creative interpretation
• original innovation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Some scholars write,

In Continental Europe—with the exception of Scandinavia and Poland—philosophy is, in large measure, just the history of philosophy. In the Anglosaxophone, world most philosophers are not historians of philosophy. The almost total identification of philosophy with its history in Continental Europe reflects massive scepticism about any theoretical ambitions on the part of philosophy. These claims are also uncontroversial, as an examination of the publications of philosophers in Continental Europe easily shows. (Mulligan, Simons & Smith, 2006, pp.63-64.)

Additional information

Funding

This article is supported by the research project ‘Studies on the Significant Frontier Issues of Contemporary Philosophy of Logic’ (Grant number: 17ZDA024) funded by the National Social Science Fund (China).