Chinese Way Of Thinking Research Articles

From Croce’s intuition to Zhu Guangqian’s Zhijue 直觉: A cross-cultural interpretation

ABSTRACT Zhijue直觉 is the Chinese translation of the English word ‘intuition’. These two terms, however, do not hold completely equivalent meanings. Before this translation, traditional Chinese lacked a precise counterpart for the concept, though intuitive thinking has long been integral to Chinese culture. Consequently, Zhijue not only inherits the cultural connotations of the Western term ‘intuition’ but also integrates traditional Chinese intuitive thought. Translating intuition into zhijue goes beyond linguistic conversion—it reflects a cultural hybrid shaped by intercultural collision and fusion. This paper investigates how the concept of intuition, as developed in Croce’s aesthetics, is reinterpreted and adapted by Zhu Guangqian in the modern Chinese aesthetic context, generating new meanings. By tracking the cross-cultural journey of the term ‘intuition’, this study explores the comparative exchange between Western and Chinese ways of thinking and their cultural implications, offering insights into the traveling of concepts across cultures.

Przedstawienie i analiza xiehouyu w literaturze oraz jako zjawisko językowe

My work is concerned with the topic of xiehouyu, a phenomenon specific to Chinese language, but little known in Poland. I try to present and analyze xiehouyu and its use in literature. The paper consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, I describe xiehouyu in general. The second chapter analyses the use of xiehouyu in Chinese literature. The last chapter offers a summary of the significance of xiehouyu. By means of concrete examples and textual analysis, the article aims to help readers grasp the meaning and value of xiehouyu, and to deepen their understanding of Chinese literary works and Chinese way of thinking.

Philosophy of Culture on the Philosophy of Modern Education in China

In Chinese philosophy, modern processes of searching for the fundamental values of the renewed strategies of education are based upon traditional Confucian approaches as well as upon recent borrowings from Western philosophy. The concept of philosophical dialogue is one example of these borrowings, adopted and radically changed following traditional Chinese logic. Such transformation means adapting the theoretical model of Socrates’ dialogue into Confucian dialogue, the term coined by Chinese authors. This paper considers Chinese developments in the philosophy of culture and aims to specify the ways of such adaptation as applicable to the philosophy of education. The goals of the study are 1) to identify and describe relevant Chinese literature on the subject; 2) to compare its interpretations by Chinese and Russian philosophers; 3) to specify key differences in interpretations of dialogue as educational method. Investigating the issue through philosophical and cultural lens, incorporating the standpoint of modern comparative studies, as well as the critical analysis of the logic of those theories in their historical and cultural context by means of the hermeneutic approach makes it possible for Chinese authors to focus on the cultural peculiarities of the Chinese way of thinking and to identify the correlation between the Western concept way of thinking and the concept of Chinese logic. This study analyzes the works of modern Chinese philosophers specializing in the specific cultural character of China through the prism of the philosophy of education. The paper concludes that in Chinese logic technical (in the Western understanding regarded as cognitive and formal logical) methods are inferior to ethical and social value orientations. Another finding is that Chinese authors tend to consider Confucian logic as part of dialogue, and dialogue is viewed as a means of moral education. Methodologically this finding leads the author to suggest that the Chinese-specific way of thinking, its philosophical culture, cannot be fully perceived by utilizing comparison with analogous concepts of Western philosophical thought. It would be equally beneficial to compare the conceptual framework of the Chinese philosophy of education with the concepts borrowed from Western philosophy.

Timeless stratagem: Understanding Chinese strategic behavior

This article establishes a helpful guide to evaluate and understand China’s strategic policies. It asserts that the current Chinese approaches to foreign and strategic engagements can be explained by probing into the ancient pre-Confucian texts, the literary traditions, the Seven Military Classics, the board game wei qi, and the fundamental cultural concepts of wu-wei, tao, and guanxi. These elements manifest the Chinese way of thinking, and thus, provide a sensible guide to assess Chinese foreign and strategic engagements. The proposition has a broad ramification on how the United States perceives and evaluates China.

Between Heart-Mind and Names: Interrelatedness in the Chan Scholar-Monk Qisong’s Thought

ABSTRACT This essay explores in depth one aspect of a topic that looms large in Song dynasty (960–1279) philosophy—the mutual interaction between Confucianism and Chan Buddhism. Under these reciprocal influences, both experience meaningful and definitive changes. This Song philosophical legacy became emblematic, and has remained so until now, of the Chinese way of thinking. Yü Ying-shih describes this exchange as a bi-directional development: “the process of Confucianization of Northern Song Buddhism,” in other words, “the process of becoming proficient as Confucian scholars undergone by Buddhist monks”; and “the influence of Chan Buddhism on the Confucian literati” ([Yü, Ying-shih 余英時. 2003. The Historical World of Zhu Xi: A Study of the Political Culture of Song Intellectuals [朱熹的歷史世界 宋代士大夫政治文化的研究]. Vol. 1. Taipei: Yunchen wenhua], 116). The present research focuses on the former and examines an original strategy that the Northern Song Chan scholar-monk Qisong契嵩 (1007–1072) used in order to demonstrate the affinities between the two teachings: a particular interrelatedness between heart-mind and names.

Towards the possibility of transforming consumer culture into ecological civilization

The article analyzes the prospects of ecological civilisation in a media-driven society at the end of the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st century. The self-identity of the individual is now formed within the culture-ideology of consumerism, which is defined by the excessive production and consumption of all kinds of goods and services. Public policies of this period are shaped by neoliberal principles emphasizing the individuals’ benefit and their profit. The result of such a culture is an intensification of environmental and social destruction at the planetary level. Almost unlimited support for the growth of production and consumption faces the limits of the planetary system, its capacity to provide resources for continued growth, and to absorb pollution. Consequently, humanity faces the instability and unpredictability of the Anthropocene. From a philosophical point of view, the global environmental crisis opens up the problem of justifying regulations restricting the freedom of unlimited production and consumption. The concept of ecological culture or ecological civilization which is developing in contemporary China can be considered as the opposite of the culture-ideology of consumerism. It emerged in China in the mid-1980s as a response to the Soviet-formulated model of ‘green culture.’ This concept integrates several ‘Western’ concepts of sustainable development, eco-Marxism, ecological democracy, but it also incorporates several traditional Chinese philosophical concepts and thus can be perceived as part of the renaissance of traditional Chinese ways of thinking and interpreting the world. The question is whether the concept of ecological civilization is a real alternative to consumer culture. If the answer to this question is affirmative, then the possibilities of transforming the culture of consumption into an ecological civilization analysed in the article should be considered as trends of sustainable development.

A Chinese Way of Thinking

A Chinese Way of Thinking

Is Yin-Yang superior for paradox research?

Purpose The paper debunks Peter P. Li’s assertion that Yin-Yang is superior to any other cognitive frames or logical systems for paradox research. The purpose of this paper is to alert the Chinese indigenous management researchers to the danger of Chinese exceptionalism and over-confidence. Design/methodology/approach To show that Peter P. Li’s assertion is doubtful, the authors identify the flaws in his analysis. Findings The authors find that there are three serious flaws in Peter P. Li’s analysis. First, there are four defects in the typology of cognitive frames he built in order to compare Yin-Yang with the others. Second, his understanding of dialectics in general and Hegelian dialectics in particular is flawed. And finally, without resorting to Yin-Yang, many scholars can develop theories that are equivalent to those derived from Yin-Yang. Research limitations/implications Due to the page limit, this paper only focuses on arguing that Yin-Yang is not superior to other cognitive frames or logical systems without going one step further to explain in which situations Yin-Yang are valuable and might be more suitable than others for helping us understand some research issues. Practical implications This paper implies that we should not blindly believe that the Chinese way of thinking and acting is superior to other people’s. Chinese people should be open-minded in the globalized era, not only promoting their own culture but also appreciating and learning from other cultures. Social implications The reduction of cultural exceptionalism and ethnocentrism can make cross-cultural communication and interaction smoother. Originality/value This paper is a rigorous critique on the “Yin-Yang being superior” assertion of Peter P. Li.

Doing fieldwork the Chinese way: a returning researcher's insider/outsider status in her home town

Insider/outsider status has been recognised in geographical literature as an important aspect of positionality on which researchers should reflect critically. Based on my fieldwork experience in Dali, southwest China, this paper articulates an account of the co‐existence of ‘insiderness’ and ‘outsiderness’ during the research process in a way that adds nuance to scholarly challenges to conceptions of insider/outsider status as an oppositional binary. I touch on several dilemmas that arose over the course of my fieldwork in my home town, such as working with local research assistants, ‘encountering’ a Western supervisor in the field and interviewing local people. I argue that interacting in the field with people from different ethnic, professional or socioeconomic characteristics dynamises a researcher's insider/outsider position, bringing his or her in‐between position to the fore. In this paper, I highlight the tensions and negotiations arising from my experience of in‐betweenness in Dali. I also point out several particularities of doing fieldwork in China by referring to Chinese ways of thinking and communication, and analyse how insiderness complicates the research process with particular regard to China. Finally, I conclude that working in the field is not only a process of data collection, but also a process of learning ‘who I am’.

Recognizing the existence of Chinese Logic

Chad Hansen provocatively claimed that there was no such thing as Chinese Logic. To assess the significance or otherwise of this claim one must know what he means by Logic (i.e. what he is denying to classical Chinese culture), what the rhetorical force of such a claim might be, regardless of his intended meaning, and whether this might be misleading in the sense that one would be missing something important about classical Chinese culture by denying there is anything that could be called Chinese ‘logic’ (as would be the case if one denied that there is anything that can be called Chinese ‘mathematics’ just because one cannot find axioms, proofs and theorems). Our paper will treat each of these in turn, first looking at the basis of Chad Hansen’s claim, and in particular at what he means by Logic. Second, looking more broadly at the rhetorical force of such a claim, regardless of its intended meaning. And thirdly looking at what important features of Chinese ways of thinking and acting this might lead one to overlook. It is to counter the rhetorical force of Hansen’s claim that the title of this paper implies the counter claim that Chinese Logic exists.

“孝治天下”與“法治天下”——新時代的“孝文化”建設初探

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.“孝治天下”是中國傳統社會的治理模式，從而形成了具有中國特色的“孝文化”，但是這個文化卻在現代化的過程中遇到了質疑和批判。然而，在老齡化和養老問題突出的今天，“孝文化”重新成為社會討論的話題，由此帶來一系列的問題：我們如何回應五四新文化以來學者對所謂儒家“封建壓迫”的批判？我們如何重新構建當今時代的“孝文化”？本文探討和“孝治天下” 與“法治天下”之間的衝突與融合，提出二者互動的辯證關係。筆者認為，傳統的孝道必須與社會結構的轉型聯繫起來，從而形成一個符合現代社會的、新型的“孝文化”。“Ruling the world with filial piety” was an effective management model in traditional Chinese society, particularly during the Confucian era. However, this commitment to filial piety was powerfully challenged by China’s New Culture Movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, and disintegrated almost entirely during the Cultural Revolution approximately 50 years later. However, filial piety has recently re-emerged as a topic of debate due to the problems created by China’s aging society. In this paper, the possibility of reconstructing a culture of filial piety is investigated in relation to the rule of law, as discussed by public-policy makers. On the one hand, long-term care policies must be tailored to modern Chinese society, which has been transformed in the last few decades by changes to family structure and the relationship between family and society. On the other hand, policy makers responsible for long-term care policies must acknowledge the traditional value system that has shaped the Chinese way of thinking and moral logic.In the West, the concept of the rule of law is intrinsically connected with that of human rights. Moving away from the traditional perception of filial piety as a moral duty, it is proposed in this paper that the Confucian ideal of filial piety can be interpreted in terms of human rights. The author combines the Western principle of the rule of law with the Confucian concept of filial piety—that is, legality with morality—to show that filial piety should not be regarded merely as a virtue or a moral sentiment, but as a legallyprotected and promoted entity. The author argues that adherence to the principle of filial piety, although decreasing in modern China, remains the most important means of regulating the treatment of elderly people by their adult children, and cultivating awareness of the moral responsibility to provide elderly care.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 1148 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.

Chinese Way of Thinking - By Wang Keping

Chinese Way of Thinking - By Wang Keping

The Greening of China: The Constructive Postmodern Movement in Contemporary China

AbstractWhen China's economy began to grow in the 1980's, many people throughout the world, including many people in China, hoped that China might offer the world a unique model of development. Many Chinese carry this hope even today, and some among them are turning to Whiteheadian or process thought for guidance. Of course Whitehead is a Western philosopher, but they see in his ideas deep similarities with Chinese ways of thinking, enabling Chinese to articulate traditional points of view in a modern setting. With help from Whitehead they are developing what they call a "Constructively Postmodern" approach to China's future. This essay introduces this movement, its core ideas, and some of its key figures, linking them with the theme of religion and sustainability.

The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ (review)

Reviewed by: The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ Patrick Fuliang Shan (bio) Roman Malek , editors. The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ. volume 3B (companion volume). Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica and China-Zentrum, 2007. 429 pp. €60.00, ISBN 978-3-8050-0542-5. This is the fourth book of the series titled The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ, though its title designates it a sequel to the third volume. Its approach draws upon the Chinese face of Jesus and Christian influence upon Chinese culture after the Communists took power in 1949. It also probes Christian life in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities. Following the editorial arrangement of the previous volumes, it is divided into two sections: the first is a collection of articles and the second is an anthology of primary sources. Altogether, fourteen scholarly articles were selected to cover the Chinese image of Jesus over the past five decades. Without a doubt, many articles verify the authors' solid research, and some could be appraised as new accomplishments on the evolution of Chinese assessment of Jesus. Because the Chinese had been brainwashed by the Marxist doctrine, people more or less were familiar with the official perspective regarding religion as spiritual opium. According to Wang Xiaochao's article, the image of Jesus has changed a number of times. At first, Jesus was viewed as an object of superstitious worship, or spiritual opium, between 1949 and 1976. However, in the decade after the Cultural Revolution, Jesus was regarded as an object of the Christian faith. In the current decade, more mainlanders objectively assess Jesus as the founder of Christianity. The Marxist image of Jesus, as in Marian Galik's article on Zhu Weizhi, a Chinese biographer of Jesus, reveals the Communist comparative analysis of historical figures. Zhu lived under Communism and, henceforth, his approach is to "redden" Jesus as a proto-Communist. He admires Jesus as a brave fighter who opposed the Roman Empire, a conscientious proletarian who only owned a strong faith, and a caring protector who championed the masses. Galik argues that Zhu "added a new one to the different Chinese faces of Jesus Christ and his book is certainly a historical document" (p. 1,351). The image of Jesus has been deeply etched into the traditional Chinese syncretic religious practice, as Philip Clart's article reveals. Clart narrows down his discourse to two popular sects, the Daoyuan and the Yiguandao, which originated in Shandong and spread into many provinces. The two sects mythologized Jesus and deliberately framed him into traditional rituals. This syncretism persists even after the Cultural Revolution, as spiritual and religious practices have triumphantly been revived after the protracted and suppressive policies. Kristin Kupfer probes the Jesus-inspired spiritual movements in China after 1978. She studies several "churches," such as "the Eastern Lightning" and "the Society of Disciples" that also mix the teachings of Jesus with Chinese beliefs. To them, [End Page 404] Jesus' images are multiple, some emphasizing his divinity as a savior while others stressing his human nature as a healer. Many of these groups are not officially registered, and their teachings are often considered by the government as heresy, for which they have endured discrimination and harassment. The image of Jesus and traditional Chinese culture, as other articles show, are intertwined. Benoit Vermander discusses the Catholics in Hong Kong and Taiwan and their assuming Chinese elements. Jonathan Tan Yun-ka coins the phrase "Confucian Christology" to highlight Jesus as a crucified and risen sage. Even famous Chinese Christian theologians, such as T. C. Chao, Y. T. Wu, and K. H. Ting, as shown in Edmond Tang's article, could not discard the Chinese way of thinking. For this, Liu Xiaofeng bluntly states that "an individual Chinese person might experience existential bewilderment (crisis) brought about by the Christian Trinitarian faith, and, through this crisis, may encounter the Trinitarian God" (p. 1,575). The "crisis" suggests the existing cultures of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism first clashing with Christian theology but eventually merging with it. In other words, even if a person converts to Christianity, he could never get rid of his own Chineseness. Joseph H. Wong's study of Fang Tung-mei...

Desakotas and beyond: Urbanization in Southern China

China's fifteen-year-long economic boom has encouraged a rapid urban expansion as well as a significant transformation of its urbanization process. The number of urban places has increased, number of people living in urban places has increased, and number of people living urbanized lifestyles has increased. The dimensions of rural transformation that have given rise to these shifts include a move out of agriculture into nonagricultural occupations (projected at 40 per cent of rural labor force by year 2000), a demographic shift of villagers to towns, and remaking of rurally oriented towns into centers of production and communication (Lee 1992). In some regions of country, however, an even more significant change has begun: age-old town-and-country chasm is disappearing as quickly as a gap between metropolis and small urban area appears to take its place. Such a process of change is facilitated by an urbanization process that can be conceptually divided into three distinct dimensions, all with awkward English labels inspired by Chinese language discussions of these phenomena: deagriculturization, townization, and citization. The author apologizes for infelicitous introduction of neologisms and offers rationale that urbanization as a conceptual frame is too broad to describe urbanization process in contemporary China. To some analysts of Asian urbanization (Ginsburg, Koppel, and McGee 1991), such developments might reflect emergence in China of a new pattern of Asian urbanization, desakota process. Desakotas (the term is derived from Bihasa Indonesian terms for village and town) are transformed areas that are no longer clearly urban or rural areas, but a blending of two. Research throughout continent, and particularly Southeast Asia, has noted spread of this phenomenon. If desakotas are becoming dominant mode in China's late-twentieth-century urbanization transformation as well, then world is witnessing a significant new path of human settlement and development. SEARCHING FOR THE ESSENCE OF URBAN From perspective of China, dynamics of change unleashed in 1979 with new reform policies are historic and breathtaking, as society with the longest and largest continuous urban cultural tradition in world irrevocably industrializes and urbanizes (Southall 1993:19). The rapidity of above-mentioned social, demographic, and economic changes has certainly taken Chinese by surprise and forms a crucial part of how Chinese view their society and its development. To Chinese way of thinking (and indeed to bulk of humanity as well) urbanization is defined at folk level as many tall buildings, and folk comparisons of urbanization rates count tall building and relative ubiquity of cemented-over areas. (One town official told me that city planning in classic sense is absent when new buildings go up; people feel no need to leave green areas of trees and grass, considering them to be unnecessary rural intrusions in an urban scene.) Urbanization is also viewed as improving sanitation, such as covering sanitation ditches and cutting down on dust (like in Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and in Tiananmen Square), and as spread of appliance and electronic goods ownership. As images of rural poverty fade, one young woman in Guangdong remarked, Soon there will be no more villages, all will become industrialized districts. I hope it all gets industrialized: more people is good, there will be more jobs, and it'll be easier to make money! The folk view thus jumbles together conceptually distinct aspects of changes swirling about; urbanization, prosperity, nonfarm work, and industrialization. This commingling of concepts is in fact quite understandable as it represents reality of pre-1978, prereform era when rural household status did indicate likelihood of a far lower income, an agricultural work assignment, and few opportunities to pursue an urban lifestyle. …

The teaching of Chinese and the Chinese way of thinking

AbstractThe teaching of Mandarin Chinese can be enhanced by the application of principles underlying the Chinese way of thinking -the Conceptual Sequence Principle (CSP) (Wu 1992:53) and the Principle of Temporal Sequence (PTS) (Tai 1985:61). These are fundamental principles motivating syntactic structures and discourse organisations in Chinese. The two principles capture the most general tendency of Chinese syntactic structures and discourse organisation. CSP accounts for various double (or multiple) nominative constructions typical of the language including Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) and Object-Subject-Verb (OSV) patterns, whereas PTS explains the relative position of verbs in verb compounds and serial verb constructions, and the position of adverbials – typically those of time and location – in relation to the verb in a sentence, as well as the because-therefore discourse pattern (Kirkpatrick 1991:183). An understanding of the two principles will not only enable students to gain insight into the Chinese language and avoid common mistakes caused by the interference of their mother tongue, but also assist them to understand the Chinese way of thinking and achieve interactive competence in the language.