Abstract:

“Independent spirit and free thought” is CHEN Yin-que’s famous saying. However, it has been misunderstood for a long time, so we need to understand it from the academic perspective. At that time, it wasn’t the unique insight of CHEN, but many scholars shared the same value. The idea involves scholars’ understanding of the relationship between the academics and the “self” and the absence of “humanity” in historical research and the disappearance of the “self” in academic writings. CHEN emphasized many times that “we should keep our mind independent when we do academic work” and highlighted the subjectivity of the “self”. It implies that subjectivity and objectivity are complementary to each other and it is unnecessary to replace the former with the latter, which brought special significance to the academic environment at that time. At least at the level of academic expressions, we need to let the “self” return.

Key words: CHEN Yin-que, independent spirit, free thought, attitude of criticism, absence of “humanity”, disappearance of the “self”