Long-Term Considerations on Constructing Academic Discourse

Now is not the first time that the problem of constructing Chinese academic discourse has been raised. This problem has repeatedly arisen ever since the advent of modernity in China. In essential form, it arose when, at the end of the Qing dynasty (1644‒1911), China, as a result of outsider infl uence, faced challenges that had never before occurred in its three-thousand-year history. As the Zhuangzi states, “Scholars, with their controversies, will rend the empire asunder.”1 It is in this context that modern Chinese scholarship has developed. Hence, it is necessary to consider this background in discussing the long-term development of modern Chinese thought and scholarship. On this basis we can assert that knowing the origin of the problem not only helps us to understand it, but also enables us to see that such a problem, even today, will provoke spirited discussion, and that we may have to reorient our work accordingly. Otherwise, we will end up repeatedly raising issues of the past and will fi nd it diffi cult give the problem depth.