Social Sciences in China, 2024

Vol. 45, No. 2, 2024

The Possibility of Returning to Experience: The Essence of Philosophical History in Chinese Philosophy and Its Reflection

(Abstract)

Cheng Lesong

The Chinese construction of the science of philosophy takes as its basic form the narrative of the history of philosophy. The introduction into Chinese philosophy of the normative character of philosophy and its problem framework via the narrative of the history of philosophy has to some extent enabled the practice of philosophy to remain separate from the norms and methods of traditional Chinese thought. Philosophical norms and problem frameworks from the West have changed the happenings of the historical world towards the eternal Dao of the classical world into intellectual texts, and have transformed the situation- based expressive strategy that develops the principles of things in the world of concrete experience into concepts and categories. As a consequence of these two positions, the ground of Chinese philosophy, based as it is on the history of philosophy, may not only be separated from the everlasting world of experience of the classics, but may also be divorced from the present experience of the modernization process. If we start from an analysis of the historicity of the Chinese intellectual tradition and its classical character, Chinese philosophy has obtained the possibility of returning to experience by means of parsing jishi yanli, a way of thinking that uses the investigation of things to fathom principles. The pathway of integrating philosophical thinking and experience will enhance and stimulate the contemporary value of the classics. More importantly, regarding the unique methods and strategies of expression in traditional Chinese thought as a general philosophical approach can facilitate the promotion of the construction of a world philosophy oriented toward current experience.

Keywords: history of philosophy, historicity, jishi yanli, experiential world