Chinese Traditional Thought - Dialogue on Pre-Qin Philosophy

It depends on the owner's understanding of the definition of philosophy.

If the definition of philosophy comes from the West, it is a logical and systematic worldview and methodology, then there are few things that can be called philosophy in ancient Chinese thought (there are still some, but they are not Confucianism, as the second floor said, but the logic-heavy thought of the Mohists and the School of Names).

But the focus of philosophy should still be on the world and life's ultimate questioning activities (this is my understanding), in this sense, the pre-Qin scholars, in addition to the military, agricultural and other specific technical schools, should all belong to philosophy.

French deconstructionist philosopher Derrida, when he came to China, once argued, "There is no philosophy in China, but there is thought and wisdom in China." But modern Western philosophy, including his own, especially postmodernism, has been constantly breaking through the definition of traditional Western philosophical systematization, and if ancient Chinese thought does not belong to philosophy, then the West's most source of thought, modern philosophy, will also appear to be the danger of "whether it is philosophy".

Therefore, Chinese academics, on the one hand, emphasize that they should not pay too much attention to the question of whether Chinese thought is a qualification of "philosophy" because it is ultimately a question of discourse caused by cultural differences, and that philosophy is a Western term which should not reduce the value of our ancient wisdom; on the other hand, they generally believe that, for the reasons mentioned above, ancient Chinese thought, including the thought of the pre-Qin and zhuzi, is the most important part of the philosophy of China. On the other hand, it is generally recognized that for the above reasons, ancient Chinese thought, including the thought of the pre-Qin masters, is philosophy, or at least wisdom that can trigger philosophical thinking, and as a different philosophical tradition with the West, in contemporary times in the margins of the regional cultural system, its value of the times should be more worthy of people's attention.

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