Zhang Taiyan’s Academic Thought In His Twilight Years

The academic thoughts in Zhang taiyan’s twilight years have been receiving a unilateral and biased evaluation for a long time. This thesis will demonstrate the academic outline of Zhang tai-yan’s later years through his academic remarks, its interaction with the zeitgeist and his contemporary images. The first chapter will narrate the specific scene of the1922Chinese-study lecture in Shanghai which was a comparatively long public lecture in his later years and the contemporary responses. Through such studies we can see the contemporary knowledge of his later-year academic, thus demonstrate Zhang’s academic image. The following three chapters will respectively focus on the study of history, the study of Confucian classics and the study of Pre-Qin philosophers so as to interpret the academic proposals of Zhang tai-an’s twilight years. His culture pluralism views can be manifested based on the aspects above. In the narrative the interaction with the zeitgeist of the academic circle is taken into consideration, which will manifest both Zhang tai-yan’s academic thoughts and the comments on his relating remarks in the temporal academic atmosphere in order to reveal the characteristics of his academic thoughts. Such a narrative may possibly avoid the plain interpretation of the text and the fall to ignorance. The last chapter concentrates on the interpretation of his academic thoughts by Zhang’s disciple Zhu xizu.We may learn via the examples that Zhu xizu’s interpretation of Zhang taiyan actually included much misunderstanding though settled in the western academic background. Especially in terms of Zhang’s insistence on culture pluralism, Zhu xi-zu seemingly failed to grasp the core points.In brief, Zhang’s academic thoughts of his twilight years cann’t be simply concluded as conservative. Faced with the vicissitudes, he had his independent academic thoughts, which did not go too far away from the core remarks of the early years. His academic remarks, though aimed at specific objects, can be regarded as maxims till today.