The Writing of "History of Chinese Philosophy" and the Modern Dilemma of Chinese Thought Tradition

Chinese different from western philosophy, does not refer to a distinct and existed academic sequence of ideas. The writing of by Hu Shi or Feng Youlan is a process of establishing modern Chinese academic pedigree with reference of western model, although pedigree appears as something already existed in ancient time. There are at least two questions as bottlenecks to be overcome in present rewriting of history of Chinese philosophy. The first is problem of the west and east. Science and sense of enlightenment are actually basic anticipation of Hu Shi or Feng Youlan in their writing of Chinese philosophy, while self-questioning, development and its achievement of western philosophy in recent fifty years was not systematically reflected in writing of history of Chinese philosophy. Feng Youlan, in his later years when he wrote A New Writing of The History of Chinese Philosophy, was totally unaware of change. The second is how to deal with relation between Chinese philosophy and Confusion classics. The denying of Confusion classics is premise of Hu or Feng's writing, and Chinese philosophy, separating from Confusion classics, cannot represent essence of Chinese culture.