{"id":1355,"date":"2024-11-24T19:15:16","date_gmt":"2024-11-24T19:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/?p=1355"},"modified":"2024-11-24T19:25:54","modified_gmt":"2024-11-24T19:25:54","slug":"the-west-as-a-truth-spot-an-analysis-of-the-reception-of-western-ideas-by-20th-century-chinese-philosophers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/2024\/11\/the-west-as-a-truth-spot-an-analysis-of-the-reception-of-western-ideas-by-20th-century-chinese-philosophers\/","title":{"rendered":"The West as a ‘truth-spot’: An analysis of the reception of ‘Western’ ideas by 20th Century Chinese philosophers"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Sociologist Thomas Gieryn, having analysed how places influence what is believed to be true, proposed the notion of ‘truth-spots’: locations which, by design, facilitate the credibility of beliefs that are associated with them. For example, a scientific discovery claimed by someone working in a lab is considered more credible than if it were claimed by someone working out of their garage. To put simply, the credibility of claims can be said to be shaped by the places they are associated with.1<\/a><\/sup><\/span>

In the 20th century, many Chinese philosophers carried out a formalised assimilation of Chinese philosophical thought with that of the West. I argue that the manner in which this took place may have been caused by a perception held by Chinese philosophers (at the time) of the West as a truth-spot. This is reflected in their adoption of Western methodologies and ideas to reinterpret elements of their own philosophical tradition.2<\/a><\/sup>

Consider how the very discipline of philosophy came about in China: initially, fields like history, philosophy and literature were clubbed under a singular pursuit of study, ‘ethics’. However, the birth of ‘philosophy’ as a singular, distinct discipline took place in 20th century China, as an emulatory response to the kind of divisions (based on fields) that existed in institutions in the West.3<\/a><\/sup> Further, Chinese thinkers took on the responsibility of drawing insights from Chinese philosophy that were mainly relevant to topics under scrutiny by Western Scholars; for example, Chinese scholars turned to ‘Masters Studies’- a term denoting scholarly work that took place during the Warring States era- because they were able to derive insights from it on psychology, logic and history.4<\/a><\/sup> \u00a0<\/em>We see here, then, that Chinese thinkers associated intellectual practises and ideas that were birthed in the West- be it institutional organisation or topics of investigation- as more credible than their own schools of thought; as a consequence, they believed that this warranted a reshaping of their own philosophical schools.

A key example of this is the notion that Chinese philosophy is inherently ‘deficient’ in comparison to Western philosophy- since its mode of articulation is dominated by ‘aphorisms, allusions and illustrations’ and not the kind of systematic, logically rigorous forms of expression characteristic to the Western philosophical tradition.5<\/a><\/sup>6<\/a><\/sup> This belief led many Chinese philosophers to rework elements of their philosophy, articulating them in a manner accessible to the West. For example, Feng Youlan, a noted philosopher, engaged with the emerging ‘New Realism’ school of thought in the West, which was concerned in the validity of metaphysics. Youlan argued that ideas of Zhu Xi (a Neo-Confucian philosopher) addressed some of the questions related to New Realism, however, they were articulated in a ‘moral framework of reasoning’. So, Youlan rewrote them, employing a logical method of expression.7<\/a><\/sup>

Gieryn suggests how places can act as truth-spots by imposing order; this is evident in Western philosophy- both in the way institutions are organised, and in the systematic method via which thoughts are expressed in it. He also notes that places may be viewed as truth-spots because they ‘manipulate time’, and this may be true for Chinese philosophy because of the preservation\/survival of tradition reflected in it.8<\/a><\/sup> It would be extreme to say that 20th century Chinese philosophers saw the West as the only truth-spot, and saw no signs of credibility in the beliefs associated with their own environment. However, it may, at the very least, be said that they perceived the West, in some sense, \u00a0to be a a truth-spot superior to their own.<\/p>\r\n

  1. Gieryn, Thomas F.. <\/span>Truth-Spots: How Places Make People Believe<\/em><\/span>. University of Chicago Press<\/span>, 2018<\/span>. Chicago Scholarship Online<\/span>, 2019 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  2. Note that conversely, the works of Western scholars who studied Chinese philosophy at the time (or the East in general) are often infamously termed as ‘Orientalist’ because of exploitative undertones present in them [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  3. Lin, Xiaoqing Diana. \u201cCreating Modern Chinese Metaphysics: Feng Youlan and New Realism.” Modern China <\/i>40, no. 1 (2014): 42-44 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  4. Ibid. [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  5. Ibid., <\/em>p. 48 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  6. Youlan, Feng. A Short History of Chinese Philosophy<\/em>.<\/em> (ed.) Bodde, Derek. New York, 1958): 12 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  7. Lin, “Creating Modern Chinese Metaphysics”, pp. 47-51 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li>
  8. Gieryn, “Truth-Spots”, pp. 173-175 [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Sociologist Thomas Gieryn, having analysed how places influence what is believed to be true, proposed the notion of ‘truth-spots’: locations which, by design, facilitate the credibility of beliefs that are associated with them. For example, a scientific discovery claimed by someone working in a lab is considered more credible than if it were claimed by … Continue reading “The West as a ‘truth-spot’: An analysis of the reception of ‘Western’ ideas by 20th Century Chinese philosophers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1355"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1368,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355\/revisions\/1368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}