Editing Hu Shih (section)

=== Chinese intellectual history ===
[[File:Hu Shi.jpg|thumb|Hu Shih as pictured in ''[[The Most Recent Biographies of Chinese Dignitaries]]'']]Hu Shih brought the scientific method and the spirit of Skepticism into traditional Chinese textual study (''[[kaozheng]]''), laying the groundwork for contemporary studies of [[Chinese intellectual]] history.

In 1919, Hu Shih published the first volume of ''An Outline History of Chinese Philosophy.'' The later portion was never finished. [[Cai Yuanpei]], president of Peking University where Hu was teaching at the time, wrote the preface for ''Outline'' and pointed out four key features of Hu's work:

# Method of proving for dates, validity, and perspectives of methodology
# "Cutting off the many schools" ({{lang|zh|截斷衆流}}), meaning ignoring all schools before the time of [[Warring States period]] and starting with [[Laozi]] and Confucius
# Equal treatment for Confucianism, [[Mohism]], [[Mencius]], and [[Xunzi (philosopher)|Xunzi]]{{clarify|date=March 2025}}<!--Mencius and Xunzi are Confucians. Here it sounds as if they were schools independent from Confucianism, like Mohism.-->
# Systematic studies with chronological orders and juxtaposition that present the evolution of theories

Hu's organization of classical Chinese philosophy imitated Western philosophical history, but the influence of textual study since the time of the Qing dynasty is still present. Especially for the second point, "cutting off the many schools" is a result of the continuous effort of Qing scholarship around ancient textual studies. Since the validity of the ancient texts is questionable and the content of them obscure, Hu decided to leave them out. In fact, before the publication of ''Outline'', Hu was appointed to be the lecturer of History of Classical Chinese Philosophy. His decision of leaving out pre-Warring States philosophy almost caused a riot among students.{{sfn|Yu|2014|pp=348–355}}{{clarify|reason=This paragraph is unclear|date=May 2019}}

In ''Outline'', other philosophical schools of the Warring States were first treated as equal. Hu did not hold Confucianism as the paradigm while treating other schools as heresy. Rather, Hu saw philosophical values within other schools, even those considered to be anti-Confucian, like Mohism. Yu Yingshi commented how this paradigm followed [[Thomas Kuhn]]'s Enlightenment theory.{{sfn|Yu|2014|p=357}}

Feng Youlan, the author of ''A History of Chinese Philosophy'', criticizes Hu for adopting a pragmatist framework in ''Outline''. Instead of simply laying out the history of Chinese philosophy, Feng claims that Hu criticizes these schools from a pragmatist perspective which makes the reader feel as if "the whole Chinese civilization is entirely on the wrong track."<ref name="Yu1934">Yu-lan Fung, "Philosophy in Contemporary China" paper presented in the Eighth International Philosophy Conference, Prague, 1934.</ref> Feng also disagrees with Hu's extensive effort on researching the validity of the resource text. Feng believes that as long as the work itself is philosophically valuable, its validity is not as significant.{{clarify|date=March 2025}}<!--What is 'validity' supposed to mean here?-->{{sfn|Chou|2012|p=36}}