Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 11, 2022

The Foundations and Approaches of Constructing a Contemporary Chinese Knowledge System

(Abstract)

Zhai Jincheng

Knowledge systems are an important basis and direct vehicle for the inheritance, innovation and development of culture, as well as a carrier through which the core values of a culture can be cultivated and perpetuated. Until the nineteenth century, Chinese and Western knowledge systems developed in parallel. The impact of the second spread of Western knowledge in China saw the reconstruction of China’s modern knowledge system by its direct converging into Western knowledge system; this was effective but also raised a series of problems. The history from conflict to convergence between the Chinese and Western knowledge systems provides a historical basis for the construction of the contemporary Chinese knowledge system, while the pathway, theories, system and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the new form of human civilization have created a broad space for its development. Accordingly, the construction of contemporary Chinese knowledge system should be based on the principles, approaches and levels of its own.