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Crossing Cultural Borders

How to Understand Historical Thinking in China and the West 1

Bibliographic Data

ID7797128
AuthorsJorn Rusen (Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities Essen, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume46
Issue2
Pages189-193
Publication date2007-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory and Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2656 • E-ISSN: 1468-2303
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-2303.2007.00399.x
OpenAlexW2051644226
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited1

Topical intercultural discourse on historical thinking is deeply determined by fundamental distinctions, mainly between the “East” and the “West.” The epistemological preconditions of this discourse are normally not reflected or even criticized. this article follows Chun‐Chieh Huang's attempt to give Chinese historical thinking a new voice in this intercultural discourse. It agrees with Huang's strategy of focusing the description of the peculiarity of Chinese historical thinking on fundamental criteria of historical sense‐generation. Huang argues for a strict difference between the Chinese way of sense‐generation in history and the Western one. against this distinction I argue that both traditions of historical thinking follow the same logic, namely that of the exemplary mode, which is known in the Western tradition by Cicero's slogan “Historia vitae magistra.” Instead of claiming this mode as typical of Chinese historical thinking, I propose to clarify the difference between China and the West by looking for a modification of the same logic. Finally the question arises as to what the paradigmatic shift of historical thinking from the exemplary to the genetic mode means for the Chinese tradition Huang has presented. This shift cannot be understood as only a Western one, since it is a mode of pursuing modernity in history by a fundamental temporalization in the interpretation of the human world

Aesthetics · China · Epistemology · Historical Thinking · Interpretation (philosophy) · Linguistics · Mode (computer interface) · Modernity · Politics · Slogan · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy

  • Public History

    Open Access•Na Li•Public history review•2022

  • India, Itihasa, and Inter-historiographical Discourse

    Open Access•Ranjan Ghosh•History and Theory•2007

  • Post-truth, education and dissent

    David Nally•Educational Philosophy and Theory•2021

  • The rise and demise of non-existent universalism

    Open Access•Ville Erkkilä•History of European Ideas•2023

  • A Comment on Professor Chun-chieh Huang's ‘Salient Features of Chinese Historical Thinking’

    Open Access•Jorn Rusen•The Medieval History Journal•2005

Unique citing works4
Citations per year0,21
Citation span2007 - 2023 (17)
Citation velocityhistorical
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 3

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