Systematic Research in Fundamental Categories of Chinese Philosophy

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The present joint research project consists of a diachronic study of the evolution of the basic concepts of Chinese thought, from ancient (pre-qin) times to the contemporary period. For example, the word "public"(ko, oyake) referred in ancient times simply to the community, but by the late Warring States period it had become associated with ideas of moral justice. Again, from the Song dynasty it became tied in with the concept of Heaven-ordained ethical norms or natural law. Then, in the modern period, the same word acquired associations with Western ideas of social equality.Over two thousand basic concepts have been selected for such diachronic study, divided into the following seven categories : "the universe and Nature, " "man and morality, " "society and government, " "religion and folkways, " "learning and knowledge, " "culture and art, " and "science and technology. "In the second year of the project, these concepts were further arranged in order of importance, and classified accordingly into four stages. The project participants produced draft manuscripts treating the items in the first two stages, which were discussed at three plenary meetings. As a result, it was determined that it would not be possible to extend the articles of stage 1 into the modern and contemporary periods within the original page limit for this stage (15 pages of 400-character manuscript paper). We have thus concluded that the value of this project will be significantly increased if the original objective of compiling a dictionary of the history of Chinese thought is put aside temporarily, and the completed manuscripts for the first two stages are published first as an explanatory manual of core concepts. We therefore propose to reorganize the above-mentioned seven categories into three blocks, and double the page limit for the articles in the first two stages. We expect to publish this initial volume within two to three years.