China Book Review - Issue 4

Author: Zheng Zhenglai / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: Some people say that the former China Review was the "academic totem" of that generation. Nine years after its revival, China Review clearly has the same pursuit. Published in April 2005, it left a certain impression and influence among scholars and pioneered the advocacy of "strict academic standards and the establishment of an academic evaluation system." Now, the purpose of the fourth issue of China Review remains the same, with the main content including:
First, exploring the issue of Chinese academic standardization by taking the activity of knowledge production itself as the object of evaluation;
Second, reviewing cutting-edge achievements in the social sciences to expect a response from Chinese academia and its own development. The publication of this book is its inherent duty to promote the in-depth development of the "Chinese Academic Standardization Movement," providing a high-level platform for book reviews from a critical perspective, which are of great significance to knowledge increment. It also offers a free academic field for reflecting on and critiquing the knowledge production machine, which is involved in the production and reproduction of knowledge. China Review is a large-scale comprehensive academic book review publication that focuses on academia, published quarterly. It serves as a free platform for intellectuals at home and abroad to review, discuss, and critique academic works and academic trends. The purpose of this journal is to promote academic critique and elevate Chinese academia. The content categories include: Thematic Book Review / Academic Book Review / Reflections and Critiques of the Knowledge Production Machine / Academic Commentary / Criticism and Response / Introduction to Chinese Works / Introduction to Western Works / Focus Discussion / Bookstore Recommendations, etc. It is an academic book review publication with high academic standards. Some people say that the former China Review was the "academic totem" of that generation, and nine years after its revival, China Review clearly has the same pursuit. Published in April 2005, it left a certain impression and influence among scholars and pioneered the advocacy of "strict academic standards and the establishment of an academic evaluation system." Now, the purpose of the fourth issue of China Review remains the same, with the main content including:
First, exploring the issue of Chinese academic standardization by taking the activity of knowledge production itself as the object of evaluation;
Second, reviewing cutting-edge achievements in the social sciences to expect a response from Chinese academia and its own development. The publication of this book is its inherent duty to promote the in-depth development of the "Chinese Academic Standardization Movement," providing a high-level platform for book reviews from a critical perspective, which are of great significance to knowledge increment. It also offers a free academic field for reflecting on and critiquing the knowledge production machine, which is involved in the production and reproduction of knowledge. China Review is a large-scale comprehensive academic book review publication that focuses on academia, published quarterly. It serves as a free platform for intellectuals at home and abroad to review, discuss, and critique academic works and academic trends. The purpose of this journal is to promote academic critique and elevate Chinese academia. The content categories include: Thematic Book Review / Academic Book Review / Reflections and Critiques of the Knowledge Production Machine / Academic Commentary / Criticism and Response / Introduction to Chinese Works / Introduction to Western Works / Focus Discussion / Bookstore Recommendations, etc. It is an academic book review publication with high academic standards.
At a deeper level, the replacement of the worldview with the theory of the "Heavenly Principle" reflects a significant transformation in the form of social sovereignty, which is the shift from the traditional empire to the modern nation-state. The author views science with worldviews as a model of the modern axiological worldview, thereby clarifying how the axiological consciousness of the modern era, the exploration of the scientific spirit, and the modern knowledge production and cultural education systems were established and interrelated, shaping each other. This is undoubtedly one of the most important contributions of the author to the study of modern Chinese intellectual history. The author points out that the scientific view of positivism and atomism provides a new social constitutive principle from the perspective of natural philosophy: it treats individuals as formally equal atoms of society and abstracts them from various kinship, geographical, and other social networks through the concept of self or subjectivity. As a result, the background conditions of moral discourse shift from geographical and kinship communities to the abstract legal subjects of the modern state, thereby dismantling the constitutive principles of political sovereignty in the traditional empire while simultaneously establishing a legitimate basis for the modern state. Specifically, science establishes a worldview foundation for the social, intellectual, and institutional division of labor and specialization, incorporating them into the framework of state rationality. The education system in modern China has a dual orientation: it integrates the national education system with the global education system through specialized division of labor and the genealogy of knowledge classification, thereby providing a knowledge-based guarantee for new labor division and social operation methods. Within this system, the production of knowledge gradually transforms into a specialized practice, and intellectuals become specialized scholars based in universities or research institutions. The modern differentiation of knowledge not only replicates the genealogical principles of science as a discipline but also defines the professional principles of these fields through formalized division of labor models. The very challenge to science expands this modern knowledge classification system and regime. Thus, the reasonable differentiation of knowledge has essentially become a rationalization design for modern society, an action program for modernization. From these perspectives, Wang Hui derives a series of profound yet critically-minded insights into modern thought and society, which hold significant meaning for understanding our time. The author uses the term "nation-state" to express this new form of sovereignty. However, as mentioned earlier, the concept of the nation-state is prone to becoming a rigid concept, used to explain a certain predetermined historical progression. Its significance in mobilizing the totality in specific historical circumstances has ensured that the nation-state in modern China has always been established as a temporary rather than an essential concept. As an external concept, the nation-state is a temporary identity for the new form of sovereignty in the face of other nation-states. In other words, the nation-state became the new form of sovereignty due to its immense function in total mobilization. However, in a cultural tradition that Max Weber described as having a "non-political attitude," the energy of total mobilization that the nation-state can unleash, though significant, is not absolute. P32