Re-interpretation Of Graham’s Correlative Thinking

Correlative thinking, a Western Sinology concept functioning at depictingcharacteristics of the Chinese thinking, has been frequently mentioned in FrenchmanMarcel Granet’s book La pensée chinoise. British scholar Graham inherited Granet’sview and developed it in details in a masterpiece Disputers of the Tao accomplishedin his old age, which is regarded as the main reason for thinking disparity betweenthe Chinese and the Western. Due to Grahan’s heterogeneous thoughts and toomany western theories injected into the book, the great thoughtful masterpiececatches only few readers. The terminology correlative thinking has been commonlyaccepted and set forth in the development course of western sinology, however littleattention has been put on inquiring the origin of the terminology; the enrichmentand development of connation of the terminology has also been rarely systematicallydiscussed. With respect to the necessity of understanding ourselves andcommunicating with the foreign civilization, effort is in need to comb the terminology,therefore I select the book Disputers of the Tao as primary research material,focusing on sorting out the connation of Graham’s correlative thinking and trying tofigure out the origin and the thread of the terminology in the context of thedevelopment of western sinology. For building the bridge communicating theChinese and the Western, I put my tiny efforts in this paper aiming at making anobjective assessment for Graham’s influence and position in the Western Sinology,critically examining the current home sinology research situation and recognizing ourcivilization from foreign sinology study.