A Philosophical Study Of Hu Shih's Methodology

Despite of the far-reaching influence of Hu Shih's methodology on the modern academia in China, essays on the methodology from a philosophical point of view can be counted, and none of them made a systematic survey. Moreover, most of these essays, which are largely identical in arguments and conclusions, are fraught with misunderstandings. As far as I know, my paper is the first systematic study of Hu Shih's methodology in a critical way. In this paper, I attempt to (â…°) clarify popular misunderstanding of the methodology, (â…±) reconstruct Hu's main points and arguments, (â…²) compare Hu's methodology with the orthodox pragmatic methodology, (â…³) analyze the influential criticisms of the methodology, (â…´) and reveal the main flaws in it. Here are the most important conclusions I come to: (1) according to Hu's methodology, the first step of inquiry is to exclude meaningless questions; (2) the pragmatic principle, which is established by Peirce, determines Hu's attitude toward metaphysics and new social sciences; (3) Hu failed to realize the importance and complexity of the second of Dewey's"five phases"; (4) Hu's slogan"Hypothesize boldly"does not mean"hypothesize as you like", but means"don't repress any possible solution suggested by your experience or intuition"; (5) though Hu made light of induction, his methodology is very different from Popperian hypothetic-deductivism; (6) contrary to popular views, Hu emphasized the importance of"choosing a hypothesis", the logic of which is similar to abduction; (7) the theory of confirmation in Hu's introductive essays on Pragmatism differs dramatically from that in his independent academic researches; (8) In epistemology, Hu's genuine stand is fundcoherentism; (9) the fact that the examples that Hu employed to illustrate his methodology are limited to textual criticism and exegesis more or less shows the extent of the application of his method; (10) Hu's slogan"don't believe anything without evidence"contradicts with orthodox pragmatism; (11) Hu did not fail to observe the difference between natural sciences and human sciences, but he thought their methods were fundamentally same; (12) Hu defended his methodology, though his defence lacks of strength; (13) Hu argued for the unity of methods, but his argument is by no means cogent; (14) according to Hu, effective observation is and must be laden with theory and value; (15) Hu misunderstood Dewey's genetic method; (16) in his independent research, Hu ignores Dewey's emphasis on"problem situation"in most cases. His methodology encountered great difficulties when applying to causal explanation in history and interpretation of philosophical classics.