Talk:Chinese Learning as Substance, Western Learning for Application

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The author does a great job in tracing the changing interpretation and contestation around the concept of "Chinese Learning as Substance, Western Learning for Application." I like how the entry is organized in chronological order and the concise introduction of relevant historical events that informed the debates.

In regard to the section on Liang Shuming's refusal of cultural blending, maybe the author could have elaborated a bit more on the philosophical foundation of such rejection: Liang defines culture as the expression of a particular type of national consciousness, so that no elements of a culture can be adopted without altering the national consciousness. The author may consider introducing Liang's notion of "three directions of the will" and the uniqueness (and even superiority) of Chinese thought over the Western one.

Some parts of the section on "Western Substance, Chinese Application" are a little difficult to follow. For example, the meaning of the sentence "Chinese 'application' not only includes the application of Western 'substance' but also that of Chinese traditional culture" is not immediately clear to me. Perhaps the author could consider introducing Li's idea of cultural sedimentation? Essentially, Li is advocating for China to industrialize and adopt political institutions of the West in order to transform its techno-social subjectivity, which would, in turn, be sedimented into its cultural-psychological subjectivity. Nevertheless, Li welcomes the embracing of traditional Chinese ideals, such as the unification of Heaven and humans (tian ren he yi), which constitutes China's cultural-psychological subjectivity.

The insight the author raised that for Li, substance and function are inseparable is very important. I would probably add to the entry that this insight can be tied back to Li's sedimentation theory which was heavily influenced by the Marxist idea that "Economic foundation determines the superstructure." The interpretation that "modernization is sinification" also does not seem to capture the entirety of Li's idea. A revised interpretation may be that while Li does embrace the re-adoptation of some traditional Chinese values, he more importantly calls for the adoption of Western "substance." Related to this, a potential point of critique to Li's thought is the potential contradiction between the inseparability of substance and function and the proposal to have a Western substance and a Chinese function.

Another minor suggestion is that the author might have considered adding the Chinese versions of concepts like "cultural view of comprehensive innovation" and "New Cultural Construction of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics," or to include citations on where the English translations were first introduced. (Xzhang01 (talk) 03:14, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Comment

The article is a great introduction of “Chinese Learning as Substance, Western Learning for Application”. The author explained the idea in a logical manner and the language is easy to understand for those who are not familiar with the matter being discussed. I appreciate the Debate section where each sub-headings are informative as well as chronological. One minor change I would suggest is to cite more using footnotes. There are several incidents where the author cited a book or some form of source but did not cite their footnotes at the end. Otherwise the work is sound. Also, to make the entry more appealing and satisfying for those who wish to explore more and being up-to-date, author can add relating information with “Western essence, Chinese application” at the end (See Also section). Jtrain02 (talk) 16:48, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Article Title/Topic

I found this while doing new page patrol. It appears to be a notable topic given the academic writing by a variety of scholars over a substantial period of time. However the article's current title, "Chinese Learning as Substance, Western Learning for Application", gives me little cue as to what this article is about and I am wondering if there isn't a better and shorter article title to be had. In general I found this a little bit confusing as someone who understands educational theory but not Chinese or Chinese educational theory/practice. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:48, 17 July 2019 (UTC)