Concepts And Materials

This thesis is about to discuss the development and transformation of concept and method on the early Chinese philosophical texts study. Through the recently excavated ancient texts, we can modify the concept on the early texts and improve the methods.The first chapter is the outline of the background studies. In the first section, there is an introduction of traditional texts study. During Ming and Qing dynasty, when scholars were focusing on the textual research, they usually use the style consistence, thinking way of the "author" as the evidence to estimate the age of a text. But they don't have clear concept about the difference of the so-called author and the text. And their attitude toward early texts was more and more radical. One text that Ming scholar Song lian ruled as authentic pre-Qin text might become pseudograph by Qing scholar Yao jiheng. The second section of this chapter discussed the inner and outer reason of why early philosopher and text study got attention in early 20th century. And when Western Impact-China Respond model was taken in consideration, we should mind some theoretical limitation of this model.The second chapter is the discussion of a new paradigm set by Hu shi. He borrowed his American Pragmatist supervisor John Dewey's methodology as theoretical frame and found some specific methods from traditional Chinese text study to fill in. He was criticized intensely by the prominent scholars such as Zhang taiyan, Liang qichao and Liu yizhen, etc. And his western-eastern fusion methodology was regarded as pure "scientism" slogan. In late 1920s, Hu shi realized that "the ancient materials limited the scientific methods", and became to emphasize on the new materials.The third chapter is about Gu shi bian ("doubting of ancient history") discussion. First, the thesis explored the rising of Gu Shi Bian Movement. Then take the Laozi discussion as the example, sum up the methods that Gu shi bian school used. Basically, they inherited the traditional text criticism methods, but abandoned the Confucianism attitudes. Although their concept about the early text was not very advanced, with many logic inconsistencies, they begin to differentiate the author from the text, also the thinking from the text. The text formation age is not necessarily related to so-called "author's" age, and the thought expressed in the text might come from even earlier age. The fourth chapter is the discussion of all kinds of responds to Gu shi bian school. Some traditional scholar such Lv simian emphasized the general rules of how ancient text was compiled and spread. Lv also pointed out that the early philosophical text usually contained master's thought, and also his disciples. So the authentification issue that time was not as clear as today. And the evidences such as personal style, thought or historical fact contradiction can't be used as the key evidences to rule the age of the text. In late 1920s, Fu sinian came back from Europe and brought up a new slogan "Historiology is merely history material study". He focused on the new materials and started the new page of Chinese archeology.The fifth chapter discussed how the excavated materials changed our vision towards the early texts. Based on many excavated materials, professor Li xueqin considered we should "Walking out of the 'Doubting of Antiquity' Era". But this calling led to some retrogress. Some scholars used obvious later material as pre-Qin material without any examination; some simply equal excavated title to received title, totally ignoring the difference between two texts; others regard excavated materials as totally authentic, ignoring their innate limitation. Realizing the complicacy of excavated materials, many western scholars such as Edward Shaughnessy think the excavated materials bring more questions compare to what they solved.