[1] Cultural immersion in the West by figures such as Hu Shih and Feng Youlan led to an increased interest in a Chinese philosophy and stimulated the creation of this field which had not yet been labeled nor discussed as such until this point.
[2] 冯友兰 (Feng Youlan) made a distinction between 中国的哲学 (the philosophical studies of China) and 中国土上的本土哲学 (indigenous philosophy from Chinese soil).
Nishi Amane, a Japanese scholar, first translated the term "philosophy" into Chinese as zhexue (wisdom learning) in 1873.
With advanced military, technology, and a wider dissemination of culture, Western systems of knowledge attained a "universal" quality that relegated Chinese paradigms as "local particularities".
[11] The material studied under the discipline of Chinese philosophy had been sifted in the early 20th century from the paradigms of classics, poetry, masters, and collected writings to create this field.
[13] Both Feng Youlan and Hu Shih comprehended the lack of narrative in Chinese thought and thus proceeded to create a categorization that mirrored that of the Western paradigm.
However, by preformatting the outline and selectively choosing material that fit, they presented a warped version of the original.
[15] Some argue that Chinese thought cannot be translated into Western jargon, when the philosophical method of the West is used to interpret the non-philosophical texts of China.
[18] Still, the danger remains that the continued use of Western discourse will suppress the voices of Chinese scholars and allow the West to retain its dominant position over the East.
[21] The early pioneers of the field of Chinese philosophy (Fu Sinian, Cai Yuanpei, Zhang Taiyan, Hu Shih) acknowledged the distinctive origin of Chinese thought as Dao Shu (Dao craft) and its implicit difference from Western philosophy.
Yet, they also conceded that at that point in time, the Western mode of thought was the only method to convey Chinese philosophy.
[22] Along the same vein, a few decades prior to Fu Sinian and Hu Shih's studies there were similar ideas forming in Japan, particularly among the intellectual society known as the Meiji Six Society, as they attempted to introduce Western philosophy to Japan in order to bridge the intellectual gap between the East and the West.
[7] In attempts for inclusion into the field of philosophy, scholars such as Feng Youlan emphasized certain aspects of classical texts that aligned with Western concepts.
By establishing an independent discipline with a history just as long as the Western version, Chinese scholars hoped to challenge the domination of the West in this field,[22] as well as stimulate national pride.
[17] Philosophy itself does not mean just thought; the word is linked to a European history that makes it specific to the West.
This view escapes the frame of the supreme Western philosophic model and proposes the question of what is philosophy.
[35] Western disciplines come from universals extracted from studies of individual phenomena and then condensed into systems of knowledge.
The main concern is how scholars can narrate the history of Chinese philosophy in a manner that allows for comprehensive understanding of the topics touched upon.
For at the moment, the Western systematic overcoat creates a Chinese history of philosophy that seems incomplete due to the lack of total overlap between China and the West.
[43] The focus on the methodologies of interpretation rather than the actual text blocks the more significant matter of whether the original material itself can be considered philosophy.
The acceptance of Chinese thought as a philosophy will only occur if this new field can deepen understanding of fundamental philosophical problems outside of its cultural context.
[20] However, just as the argument goes that Chinese thought cannot be made to fit to the standards of Western philosophy, the reverse is as true.
[45] Another solution proposed is the introduction of more methodologies in order to have more philosophical interpretations to replace the uniform approaches of the 20th century.
[7] In addition, a complete rejection of the term "philosophy" concerning Chinese thought would isolate this field from Western contemporaries making it irrelevant.
[49] Yu Xuanmeng advocates a new structure for comparative study between Western and Chinese philosophy that grants them both the presence of transcendence, though through different means.
He reasons that the extension of life in time – that is, the conscious choices made by man of how to involve himself with the world after he examines himself – is also a type of transcendence.