Abstract:The study of Chinese philosophical methodology often refers not to methodology but to methods. The latter is an operation plan guiding how to carry out the research. However, the function of the former is not a prior guidance, but a post-evaluation. It is a criterion to judge whether the existing researches of Chinese philosophy are researches in real sense. And this criterion is the rule of what research programs can be conducted. It is to be argued that the judging criteria and the rules of conduct can only be viewed from the perspective of universal philosophy. But the so-called “universal philosophy” is only universal in its form, that is, both Chinese and Western thoughts have a form of logically telling universal truth. If we understand philosophy in this way, we can, from the connotation, portray the study of Chinese philosophy as part of Chinese thought logically telling the universal truth in terms of its object, and its purpose is to make clear the truth not clearly stated and speak out the unspoken truth. Thus, the study of Chinese philosophy can be seen as a philosophical approach to the study of Chinese thought. In terms of methodology, the study of Chinese thought, to be in the name of Chinese philosophy, must be professional and scientific. From the perspective of methods, “philosophical approach” corresponds to the analytical approach, especially semantic analysis.
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