Philology in Six Categories: A Chinese Perspective

Abstract

This article serves to analyze the role and history of philology within modern Chinese humanities-based scholarship, using the work of Fu Sinian and the establishment of the Institute of History and Philology as a framework with which to observe the changing status of philology as a practice within contemporary Chinese humanities. Despite its critical function within the Western scholarship and cultural development that inspired modern Chinese scholars as well as its centrality to Fu Sinian’s groundbreaking efforts, philology has been all but ignored in recent years, and its purpose has been rendered niche and peripheral. Additionally, the ambiguity that has surrounded the term “philology” itself since its earliest days within the Chinese academic world has only intensified over time, thereby exacerbating the field’s marginalized status. The author’s goal is to call attention to the complexity and importance of philology that has been so critically overlooked in recent times by outlining six distinct yet interrelated categories of philology/philological study, ranging from a basic academic “love of words, text, and learning” to a broad life view. By providing a detailed, segmented glimpse into the otherwise vaguely-defined phenomenon of philology, its vital function as mankind’s sole means of comprehending the past is made clear, and a “return to philology” is advocated in order to preserve those specific academic fields that draw their origins from philology and avoid a collapse of scholarly humanities study as a whole.

Keywords

philology / modern Chinese humanities / return to philology

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2020 Higher Education Press