The humanities or human sciences stand between the more empirical-positive social sciences and  traditional scholarship. This mixed character nevertheless does not render the human sciences less important in social life. Despite the superior development of the natural and technological sciences, the happiness and security of mankind ultimately depend on the quality of the humanities which provide the basic values underlying judgments about the situations and direction of human life. Natural science and technique provide the material means, while the humanities provide the spiritual goal. It is evident that the problem of aim is superior to that of the means. Unfortunately, however, the humanities are not adequate enough to serve mankind. Compared with the natural and social sciences, the human sciences lag behind with regard to the following rational conditions:

1) Precise descriptions of socio-historical phenomena and their causal relations;

2) Correct descriptions of psychological-behavioral relations;

3) Widely acceptable spiritual-axiological criteria, including those concerning the relation between values and facts;

4) Feasible designs of social projects based on 1, 2 and 3.

In brief, these conditions depend on the reliable knowledge of human social existence and related spiritual values. Therefore, we are still poor in both the positive and the axiological aspects of our humanist wisdom. The twofold intellectual weakness of the humanities makes them inadequate for providing a  feasible guide in each case for the good choice in human life. Judged in light of the above standards, many great thinkers in the humanities have obtained more social success than scientific achievement. Some of the most distinguished thinkers of our time have even provided wrong guidance for social and political choices. The most recent excuse for this disappointing phenomenon is that the humanities do not need to become scientific or rational. If the present humanities are justified in pursuing unscientific purposes, people still have a right to require intellectual activities  scientific enough to satisfy the above requirements. Let “HS” denote the humanities or human sciences, “HS1” quasi-scientific activities and “HS2” non- or less-scientific activities with respect to life, society, history, mind and spirit. The above four epistemological conditions then belong to HS1. The question is whether HS2, which could be ontological or poetical in character, has any right to expel HS1 from human life. Putting aside the justification of the direction of HS2, we should ask how to reorganize HS1 in order to establish the above four rational conditions even out of utilitarian considerations. Despite the mutual overlapping of the social sciences and HS1, they are different in their respective positive aspects.  There are non-physically defined positive layers of the humanities which are characteristically connected with empirical and pragmatic problems of the historical, psychological and axiological dimensions.

The historical disasters of this century have a close connection to the lower quality of HS1 or  its weaker scientific capacity. In view of the success of the natural sciences, the human sciences or HS1 should augment their positive and empirical rationality. This is an urgent task in our “post-modern” era. Contrary to fashionable statements against rationality in the human sciences, we should strengthen it in an effective or more relevant way. The humanities, far from being completed as a human activity, need to be renovated or reformed. Without predicting their desirable state in future, we should like first to find  practical ways to promote their substantial improvement. The direction of our efforts is first linked with so-called epistemological or theoretical presuppositions. The task lies not only in inventing more feasible approaches within the existing disciplinary framework, but also in reorganizing the theoretical framework, problematic grouping and methodological system of the humanities. This reorganization must start by disorganizing the structure of the existing disciplines at the very basis of  the present humanities and their discourses.

With a view towards reorganizing the academic framework of the humanities, we will first choose effective approaches. Intercultural studies can be included in the renovating process and can help promote the reform of the Western humanities. If the interdisciplinary orientation marks the correct renovation of the humanities, the intercultural perspective is certainly its organic part. The title “comparative humanities” can carry a double sense: comparative studies between different disciplines as well as those between different scholarly traditions. The former is synonymous with the interdisciplinary and the latter with the intercultural. The present work maintains that the active development of the comparative humanities today is to be realized between the following epistemological poles: the intercultural, the interdisciplinary, the semiotic, the ethical and the ideological. These five epistemological poles are designated first in operative, rather than substantial, terms. They are the indices of  methodological directions indicating the key aspects for the reform of the humanities or HS1. These aspects, in our opinion, have unfortunately been neglected by standard scholarship in the humanities.

In brief, the intercultural pole has to do with expanding the effective observational scope; the interdisciplinary with rearranging research problematics and strategies; the semiotic with developing precise expressions; the ethical with paying attention to the axiological autonomy at the heart of the humanities; and the ideological with stressing the relations of dominance and techniques of power in cultural fields multiply influencing the organization of  theoretical discourse. In this introduction, we shall outline the basic content of the epistemological poles, while the articles in the various parts provide some selective examples of related analyses.

1. The Intercultural: Reorganization of Historico-cultural Materials in the Human Sciences

    While the interactional tendency of different areas of the world at social, economic and political levels has steadily intensified, communication between different cultural traditions has also increased. In the international community, different sorts of literature and arts have  intermingled through world-wide comparative activities over the last century. Since the end of World War Two, international exchange in the different traditions of the humanities has also occurred, including that between Western sinology and Chinese studies of the Western humanities. In fact, any individual scholar in these fields must organize his thought and strategy in an intercultural arena if he wants to take account of the entire horizon of objects and objectives in his projects. Non-European cultural and intellectual experience has become a necessary part of the entire humanities. The Oriental history of literature and historiography has been proved to possess the same importance as the European for understanding the mechanism of human society and mentality, which can only be completely grasped after researching different cultural traditions.

Nevertheless, heterogeneous historical materials can only be internationally shared after their reformulation according to a commensurable vocabulary and grammar. Intercultural communication is only possible on the basis of commonly adopted code systems. Therefore, before bringing different historical documents into communication, it is necessary to create the technical conditions for  intellectual communication. The intercultural implies not only materials but also methods. On one hand, the established disciplines provide comparative scholars with the current approaches and their results; on the other, scholars reorganize their strategical designs in the related intercultural situation in order to advance their scholarly goals. Accordingly, an intercultural scholar meets with the interdisciplinary problem. Among  intercultural discussions, the most noteworthy is that between the Western and the Chinese, due to their contrasting heterogeneity and equally rich cultural heritages. The significance of Western studies of the  Chinese tradition is not limited to bilateral comparative scholarship; it is an essential part of the intercultural humanities. Thus, in proportion to the necessity of Western knowledge  for the modernization of the Chinese humanities, the latter will become more and more essential to the former for its structural and substantial enrichment.

Intercultural scholarship takes a different direction from Western-centered scholarship. Leaving aside all ideological digression, the present discussion refers to the distinction between suitable and unsuitable methodologies rather than to the historico-geographical distinction between the Western and the non-Western. Non-Western scholars should accept all achievements even if they mostly originate from the West. Similarly, they shall reject all scholarly shortcomings and mistakes of  Western and non-Western scholars. The blindly pro-Western position is just as wrong as the blindly anti-Western one. Intercultural studies can lead to more satisfactory discursive compositions and the well-balanced inclusion of objects of different cultures.

The rational-scientific tradition founded in ancient Greece has become the common heritage of mankind. The point lies not in its origin but in its development and performance. Knowledge is international public wealth. Thus, Western knowledge should not and cannot be the monopoly of Western scholars even if it has arisen in the West. The same is the case with Oriental achievements. Everyone in the world has an equal right to judge and employ the achievements of different cultural traditions. The same tradition can be adopted, shared, criticized and developed by anyone in the world, regardless of its origins, just as science with its Mediterranean origin has been gradually shared and furthered everywhere in human history. Furthermore, non-Western scholars familiar with the Western scholarly tradition have the obligation to critically and objectively examine the latter even in terms of more effective Western approaches. Different socio-historical circumstances makes non-Western scholars capable of forming more critical reflections on this commonly shared intellectual heritage. In other words, intercultural practice helps realize a more productive and more original synthesis which can eventually be useful for both Western and non-Western scholars. Cultural determinism in political conflicts is based on a short-sighted empiricism which can possibly be overcome by the more effective intercultural practice of the humanities.

Thus, intercultural activities can substantially expand the scope of the objects and objectives of globally shared intellectual and social practices. The original structure of non-Western historical phenomena can in turn augment the scope of the Western scholarly tradition and enrich its constitution, for the latter can  be  stimulated to revise its epistemological and performative topography. In this sense, the result of intercultural scholarship is twofold: modernization of the non-Western and rationalization of the Western intellectual traditions within a unified academic framework. A single scholar, regardless of his origin, must systematically account for all objects in terms of a consistent operational procedure. Contrary to the philosophical hermeneutic position, the historico-geographical character of  intellectual products will no longer play a determinate role in human understanding which itself can only be a synchronous behavior. Cultural objects have different historical constitutions,, but the individual working on those objects must practice in a temporally and spatially consistent way. Rationality in the broad sense is just consistence in practice, if practice is intended to be scientific rather than artistic.

The spirit of intercultural practice lies in promoting universally arranged scholarly activities in a world which has become a closer intellectual collective. The different agents in the shared communication should attain more common presuppositions, norms and procedures, especially in the practice of social and human sciences, with a view towards attaining greater clarity and certainty in intellectual and practical operations. Clarity in judgment and certainty in choice are the natural objective of human spiritual endeavors, if the latter intends to be genuinely effective and sincerely responsible.

The formation of postmodernist nihilism could be largely due to a loss of the consciousness of independent responsibility on the part of he individual in an era dominated by technology. Pure intellectual enjoyment is preferable to the relevant interpretive and pragmatic reference of practice to reality. As a result, postmodernist passively subsist within the material conditions produced by the technological power. Modernist rhetorical devices might be not the signs of the rebellion against, but rather of the evasion from or yielding to technological institutionalization.

Cultural heritages are historically and geographically formed, hence compositionally heterogeneous. Intercultural scholarship, nevertheless, can judge,  select and rearrange  the constituent elements of divergent intellectual traditions in  a comprehensively synthetic way. The object is divergently constituted; the intellectual operation is consistently organized. In light thereof, the intercultural scholarship not only presents a more complete list of objects included in the procedure, it tends to find more effective ways to treat the heterogeneously constituted objects in a homogeneous methodological operation. Therefore,  intercultural studies promote a fresher consciousness of the need for a  renewed methodology. This means that its task lies not only in introducing useful non-Western scholarship to the world, but also in promoting the intercultural or international humanities on the basis of shared academic conditions. In other words, it is time now that the scholarly problems of the global village be handled in a systematic way: not only politico-economically but also culturo-intellectually.

On the whole, the Western humanities have been shaped by European socio-intellectual history, mainly taking the content of the latter as their objects. Despite the advanced development of their rational methodologies, the scope of their materials is limited to European civilization which is only part of human history. The accumulated knowledge of society and history based on this scope can hardly  explain non-European historical experience. In this regard, for example, the thought of both Nietzsche and Foucault, despite its critical brilliance, cannot be directly employed as a suitable theoretical instrument for interpreting other historical experiences having their own different contents, approaches, formulations, pragmatic tendencies and expressive styles. The historico-geographical particularity of the Western intellectual experiences cannot be used to justify incomplete conclusions made solely within the Western cultural tradition. There is an academic duty to expand  intellectual experience, particularly after the achievements of the Western humanities have become globally prevalent. Just as the Western humanities are needed in non-Western areas, their improvement is urgently necessary for the sake of mankind itself.

The intercultural emphasis does not degrade the guiding role of the Western humanities which, because of the scientific tradition of European civilization, remain the foundation for the development of human sciences in the next century. Intercultural studies provide complementary and critical contributions within the academic world which is largely based on the Western scientific traditions. Chinese-Western comparative studies have then a double role: promoting the modernization of traditional Chinese scholarship and promoting the renovation of the Western-based humanities. The latter role will become more and more recognizable as intercultural dialogue progresses; and the Chinese humanities can share in the renovation of the human sciences. In view of this methodological dialectic, Chinese scholarship should first learn from the West and share in promoting a form of international scholarship based upon it.

2. The Interdisciplinary: The Reorganization of Epistemological and Methodological Systems

    Intercultural studies compose the essence of the interdisciplinary studies. The intercultural perspective is part of the interdisciplinary strategy.  On one hand, the existing disciplines have been formed in the historical process. A discipline consists of the constituent elements of its objects, objectives and approaches formed in its professional history. On the other, when attempting to more creatively rearrange or expand one’s scholarly interests, one is faced with the choice about and the search for one’s epistemological and methodological combinations. The established scholarly framework of a discipline is determined by a fixed set of customary professional arrangements which should not restrict the mode of intellectual activities, unless the professional efforts are motivated by purely utilitarian rather than scientific interests. In our time, a basic intellectual freedom in scholarly orientation should be recognized and encouraged in all established disciplines. Scholarly freedom cannot be obstructed by the established disciplines if there is to be any genuine hope of promoting intercultural scholarly endeavors. The development of both intercultural and interdisciplinary scholarship is tied first with a fundamental attitudes towards academic goals: scientific truth or  utilitarian effects. The Socratic/Sophistic distinction has gained a new validity with respect to  nihilist postmodern epistemology due to the following reasonable questions: How is one to distinguish between shallow and serious rhetorical games in the humanities?  How is one to distinguish between scientific and artistic practices in theoretical discourses? What is the operative criterion if  postmodernists give up objective reference? Both comparative studies in general and sinology in particular have to take these epistemological questions into account. The term "interdisciplinary" is frequently misused by avant-garde philosophers who mingle different cultural categories in their scholarly activity, rather than in combining different disciplines in the academics, namely, the categories of science and art or logical argument and rhetorical persuasion. This categorical ambiguity in human spiritual practice has  serious epistemological and pragmatic consequences.

Non-Western scholarly traditions have the task of bringing the classical Western  “scientific elements” into their own frameworks. They also encounter the rapid change of the Western social and human sciences in comparison with their own traditions. A modern scholar of the Chinese humanities must be concerned with the both intellectual perspectives if he is not content with less creative routine scholarship. The twofold academic concern is connected with the effective handling of the non-Western humanities, if the latter is not limited to philological or descriptive methodologies. In this regard,  the classical (i.e., historical materials) and the modern (i.e., scientific methods) must encounter one another. The delicacy lies in the fact that the difficulty cannot be overcome through simply subjecting the former to the latter. If the dogmatic pro-scientist line does not function, neither does the irrational modernist line. We have no reason to regard both Western intellectual tendencies as closed processes. All scholars remain in the tentative stage of the humanities. We do not need to regard any intellectual talent as an absolute authority dominating our way of thinking. If Christ's teaching is to be rejected as axiologically unfounded, then Nietzsche's does not become an alternative either. There is no hurry to declare the completion of human intellectual history, which in fact has only a short span of time, by choosing  individual points of view as the final judgments about existence.

Among interdisciplinary endeavors there is also the aspect of the relations between the humanities and science-technology. The procedural divergency itself between science and the humanities also implies a profound epistemological crisis. The diverging practice of the humanities does not guarantee its spiritual independence. It is time now to reconsider the relations between science and technology in their dominance and the avant-garde philosophies in the humanities which have influenced the epistemological turn in the social and human sciences of the post-war period. Is it an active challenge or a reaction of the latter to the former or instead a mere self-comforting elusive mode in the face of the pressure of  technological power. It could be that the former provide the latter with  comfortable conditions such as in campus culture enabling it to survive in its own exclusive rhetorical autonomy. If communicative feasibility within the campus world becomes the main justification for producing theoretical discourses in the humanities, this scholarly institutionalization will limit other important possibilities for human happiness. The fact is that while science and technology have maintained their aggressive and dominant tendencies, the humanities are giving up their earlier ambition to match them, instead holding that we need only enwrap ourselves in the rhetorical or stylistic pleasure, regardless of the task of a HS1. The result is that the humanities cannot help us to better ourselves scientifically and practically. The present-day humanities, at least in some radical forms, are inclined to offer artistic rather than scholarly poetics through the ambiguity of the word. This brings the danger that we might miss the following goals of our academic endeavors:

1) The semantic consistency of discourses in our historical descriptions (without 

    this intelligible dialogue will be replaced by artistic communication);

2) The causal and inferential precision of observations in formulating our world picture (without this we cannot obtain the correct intellectual tool in our practical designs);

3) The axiological pertinence of ethical judgments in  interpersonal relationship (without this human bliss cannot be the goal in history);

4) The pragmatic feasibility of human projects in historical existence (without this the humanities cannot help us to make right choice in social life).

 In order to modernizing the non-Western social and human sciences, the above rational goals must be maintained and developed. Human life naturally requires order and rationality and the human sciences require the same. We cannot accept social disorder, nor can we tolerate intellectual disorder. In light of this fact, China studies can only seek to be more scientific and rational. For this purpose, they must overcome a double one-sidedness: the nationalist ideology pervading the historico-geographically rooted merits of some non-scientific documents and the blind imitation of the intellectual fashions of the Western campus. These scholarly tendencies are technically more connected with the fixed system of modern and traditional disciplines.

The interdisciplinary turn of the humanities implies a freedom to get rid of the restrictions of  any single disciplinary framework. We must redesign and reorganize our scholarly processes more relevantly, in order to more effectively promote the above four scientific requirements. The newly chosen objects and objectives in our projects naturally require various elements from other disciplines, including those from both modern Western and traditional Chinese academics. Scholarly success should not be judged merely on the basis of current professional standards. Instead, it should be examined by means of the above-mentioned four criteria. For example, on one hand, we should learn from Foucault his original technique of analyzing historical texts, while on the other we have to avoid his own  ideological bias in naively projecting one’s historical philosophy into current political reality. The relevant intellectual achievements and the irrelevant ideological underpinnings are frequently confused in the discourse of many influential contemporary thinkers. In the same sense, we should treat the significant contributions of both Husserl and Lacan in the same critical way without regarding their entire theoretical systems as the ready foundations for  scientific construction. We are less specialists linked with the definite discipline or individual thoughts and more creative agents operating with different intellectual instruments and materials from various sources.

The interdisciplinary approach is contrary to any disciplinary centrism. No single discipline, no matter how much successful it might be, can provide the complete theoretical basis for other disciplines. In this sense, philosophy as a discipline must surrender its guiding role in the humanities today. Although any scholarly project requires a theoretical framework, the theoretical presupposition or foundation of interdisciplinary studies does not belong to the philosophical discipline. No other traditional discipline can provide a similar foundation, for no single discipline can restrict the scope and mode of intellectual operations to its own established system.

Similarly, sinology will become more open to various disciplines when Chinese scholarship has become more involved in the international humanities. In the interdisciplinary framework, research projects must relax their traditional links with the methodological patterns of the conventional disciplines to which they  belonged in former times.

Now it is clear that if intercultural studies have not expanded the scope of the objects of the contemporary humanities, one of the reasons lies in the limited commensurability and communicability between the European-American humanities and the traditional Oriental ones. Interdisciplinary approaches should promote this development by fostering the intellectual dialogue between the both. In this sense, intercultural and interdisciplinary practices interact with the aim of promoting both the interactional and separate developments of different trends in the humanities.

Nevertheless, the interdisciplinary orientation does not naively works towards cancelling or weakening the existing disciplines. This is impossible and unnecessary. The scholarly orientation implies that there exist parallel and combinational methodological mechanisms including both specialized fields and their multiply interactional collaborations. On one hand, any scientific field should continue developing its own special technical sophistications; on the other the constitutional and methodological elements of various fields can be rearranged and reorganized in specially designed projects. In a word, the projects are not restricted to the inner structure of the conventional, professional and historically established disciplines. For the purpose of stimulating the efficiency of  intercultural dialogue, interdisciplinary treatment is clearly necessary. Similarly, the interdisciplinary emphasis does not aim to exclude the scholarship of any influential scholar, but it will help analyze the composition of any individual work without regarding its scholarly system as entirely acceptable. The human sciences cannot be equivalent to a history of individual works in the humanities. For example, the present main pedagogical mode of teaching various individual thoughts in philosophy departments belongs to the discipline of philosophical history provides only the material of philosophical thought to be analyzed and  rearranged in  interdisciplinary projects.

Another meaning of the interdisciplinary orientation lies in the fact that the socio-culturo-academic institutional hierarchy should be reasonably anatomized in order to promote interdisciplinary work. The scholarly and professional systems of various disciplines based on the socio-educational framework should not limit and obstruct the reorganization of reorganizing the academic and scholarly elements. This extra-scholarly aspect is not less important for realizing  interdisciplinary and intercultural activities.

3. The Semiotic: The Reorganization of Semantical Expressions in Different Cultures and Disciplines

There are many methodological trends in the contemporary humanities which can help reorganize our epistemological presuppositions and operative systems. The title of a philosophy school or trend can play a role in indicating the scholarly direction. Comparatively speaking, some of them are too broad, such as Marxism, critical philosophy, hermeneutics, or analytical philosophy; while some others are too narrow, such as phenomenology, psychoanalysis, Neo-Confucianism and post-structuralism. The more direct reason for the inconvenience of employing them as  guides for academic renovation lies in the substantial aspect: all of them advocate a scholarly system. It is true that people can also use semiotics to refer to any substantial system, such as the Morrician and Peircian; and the title can also play an ideological role. But it can be uniquely used as a universal index in connection with all cultural and scholarly phenomena: the formalist aspects of signification, communication and behavioral practice. This selective formalism make it suitable for expressing those aspects in the discourses of all areas. It can be treated apart from other substantial dimensions and used merely for the reformulation of discourses according to a unified procedure. It plays the part of a "language" which can be neutrally and necessarily employed in every field or system. This intellectual potential is just what the humanities need in their modernization, which  requires on the first instance the precision of expression .

The semiotic is not a "final vocabulary" in competition with other terminological vocabularies in the academic world. It is, however, an "artificial language" capable of replacing our natural ones in order to advance the expressive semantic efficiency of our formulations. Semiotic efforts are motivated by the pressure of multiple semantic ambiguity. If we do not improve our verbal media, we will remain trapped in unsuccessful and misleading communication between different discourses primarily because of the conventional semantic disorder.

Regarding comparative and sinological studies, the necessity is even more obvious and urgent. Concretely, semiotic scholarship is a typical embodiment of  intercultural and interdisciplinary studies at both the observational and methodological levels. The semantic commensurability of different historical and scholarly experiences is the first goal of cultural semiotic studies based on intercultural and interdisciplinary scholarship. As a sort of “universal semantics,” the semiotic treatment provides the necessary operative preparation for promoting the comparative humanities. Without this semantical-commensurable stage,  neither intercultural nor interdisciplinary studies can be effectively carried out. No doubt, this interculturally and interdisciplinarily universal semantics contains various levels, such as the linguistic, stylistic, narrative and pragmatic. Intercultural scholarly communication should be first organized at these different semantic levels. Semantic reformulation will not change the original structures of the different cultural objects which are to be further treated by various disciplines. Therefore, despite its universal applicability, the semiotic approach is only a preparative part of the scientific process. It is a semantic machine to produce the basic linguistic units for the semantic reconstruction of all discourse. It is not a system of laws or a logic for scientific inference, but a language for the description and expression of heterogeneous phenomena. Consequently, it is a necessary and useful instrument for intercultural and interdisciplinary strategies.

In brief, the semiotic role in unifying semantic descriptions involves both the interdisciplinary and the intercultural. Semantic commensurability should be reached between different terminological systems as well as different traditional languages or cultural manifestations. Without this preliminary semantic treatment,  intercultural and interdisciplinary studies can hardly be carried out.

4. The Ethical: The Reorganization of Value-Formulations

In saying that ethical elements play an important part in the constitution of the intercultural humanities, we do not naively advocate any moral doctrine in the humanities. The term “ethical” refer to an operative aspect in the structure of the humanities. First, as a part of the axiological field, the ethical remains central to the content of the humanities. All great thinkers, classical or modern, have been judges of the ethical implications of the humanist discourses. On the other hand, the pragmatic aspects of cultural and social life are connected with ethical presuppositions and underpinnings. Intercultural studies have shown that different ethical and politico-ethical traditions hold between Western and non-Western civilizations. This ethical and politico-ethical heterogeneity can substantially widen and deepen the perspective of ethical and political thought.

Another operative aspect of the ethical domain involves the central part of the humanities: the interpersonal relational network of human societies. The individualist modern era cannot exclude this basic aspect of social phenomena. Individualism of all kinds is rooted in the interhuman network. It is only because the latter is legalized or institutionalized that the former appears independent or autonomous. The existential relativism from which the ethical arises should overcome the current extreme individualist rhetoric which leads the discourses of the Western humanities to blur their objective referents. Alien ethical experience can help readjust the referential structure of the humanist discourses.

Accordingly, the link of the humanities with pragmatic projects should be also redefined in line with the expansion of ethical experience. Intercultural ethical discourse should regenerate the role of ethics in its thoroughly legalized era. The functional division between the legal and the ethical should be reconsidered in the intercultural humanities; there is also an ethical dimension in the socio-human scientific world. This dimension can be more effectively reconstituted by  intercultural scholarship because the non-scientific rhetoric of contemporary Western thought has obviously weakened the recognition of its empirical composition. Seen as liberator from ethical bondage, some avant-garde thinkers, simplifying and distorting the Nietzschean criticism, have purposely degraded the ethical dimension. Thus, we see many great intellectual masters become the bad judges of political morality of this century. This historical facts proves the innate weak point of Western ethical scholarship: all interpersonal realistic reference has been replaced by either metaphysical speculation or legalism. Moral philosophers have become satisfied in being merely negative rather than positive teachers.Their doctrine amounts to one of “No Action” in our disastrous times. Having surrendered active ethical choice, intellectuals have become content with weaving  rhetorical texts within the campus framework; social effects are no longer a criterion of ethical discourse. The fact should be pointed out that intellectuals no longer play a politico-socially productive role precisely because of this scholarly weakpoint in the humanities and a legal determinism in our technological era.

The weakening of the ethical dimension is connected with the more general debate of this century on the philosophy of subjectivity . We are in an era which has degraded subjectivity and egology ever since Heidegger replaced Husserl as the leading German thinker. The anti-Cartesian trend is also a function of Sartre's existentialism. The relation between the ethical dimension and the epistemological content of the humanities accrues more importance because of the problem of the subject or ego. Both the humanities and ethics inhere in the subjective level in their semantic constitution. The concepts of subject, ego, I, self and consciousness are the declared enemy of present Western epistemology. There are at least two doubtful aspects of this epistemological trend which can be pointed out. How can we make consistent the different designations of the agent in different contexts? Both Descartes and Husserl should be grasped in their respective context as determined by their own operative procedures. There is no natural commensurability between these ego-related terms employed in such disparate disciplines, discursive levels and operative aspects. We cannot even take "subject" as a definite term.  Different people have different usages of the same word, so that there are different semantic groups. Hegel, Husserl and Lacan, for example, can scarcely be contrasted directly because of their completely distinctive problematics and strategies. Secondly, all anti-Cartesian positions share in the same recognition of various non-subjective determinants, among which unconsciousness and historicity are the most influential. These other forms of determinants, however, cannot cancel the existence and function of the subject as the operative agent exactly  as happens with traditional  determinants such as the social, physical and biological. The subject certainly exists and functions separately in a determining context; it does not work in the non-resisting inertia. Judgment and choice of the subject take place  among various determining factors, including unconsciousness. Without understanding the details of these determinant aspects, the subject still effectively performs its practice of choice and decision. On the other hand, the rejection of the role of subject is one of the main reasons why the ethical dimension is currently losing its significance. Interdisciplinary studies concerning the subject can avoid fixation on discipline and therewith help to solve the problem. The present-day anti-subjective tendency cannot be regarded as epistemologically conclusive, particularly when Oriental ethical experience offers different examples.  The crisis of ethical scholarship has an effect in all of social and human sciences, but it is somewhat hidden by Western cultural and academic structures. Intercultural studies can help extend our social and intellectual perspective in connection with the ethical and politico-ethical dimensions which should remain the central in the humanities.

5. The Ideological: The Reorganization of the Knowledge of Academic Manipulation and Domination

   We employ the term “ideological” in an operative sense, one referring to a formative part of the discourses of the humanities. There exists an autonomous level in the humanities called the ideological, namely, the intellectual or cultural manipulations and dominations of spiritual freedom. There is unjust interpersonal domination and exploitation behind the production and manifestation of humanist discourses; and this phenomenon extensively influences the structure and function of the humanities. Intercultural studies can help unmask the ideological underpinnings and mechanisms of the scholarly discourse. While they belong to the same interpersonal framework, the ideological and the ethical are contrary to one another on the ideational and the operative levels. In ideological phenomena, we see the pure play of interpersonal dominance regardless of ethical concerns: there exists a sharp contrast between ideal and force. Both the manipulation and domination of ideological mechanisms belong to the category of quasi-physical force at another semantic level: that of social dynamics based on biological aggressiveness. Intercultural humanities can enrich our knowledge of this immediate brutal reality of human cultural life through introducing the historical material of alien cultures. Thus, ideological study has nothing to do with the substantial aspects of concrete moral propaganda; it is instead related to a special structural/functional layer in the production of discourses in the humanities and therefore organically linked with institutional domains. The direct and indirect connections between intellectual discourses and institutional mechanisms is the proper object of ideological analysis.

Ideological analysis is part of the methodological system, referring to the definite domains of and functions in the humanities. Ideological study must be connected with other axiological layers, especially the ethical, its reflective negative index. We use the term “ideology” especially to denote the technical aspect traditionally neglected by academic scholarship. Ideological analysis can help disclose the composition of our objects and objectives. Academic practice historically contains the special dimension of interpersonal domination and related cultural manipulations which should not be lost sight of in scientific discussions.

There are two poles of moral criteria: the individual-ethical and the public-political; and there are two kinds of injustice: the individual and the socio-political. The ethical and the ideological are oppositional as well as combinational dimensions of socio-cultural phenomena, yet they maintain separate operative mechanisms. Ideological analysis is an essential part of investigating the structure and function of power of any type, which is realized through various cultural and intellectual maneuvers. The analysis of ethical/ideological phenomena aids in more positively clarifying the ambiguous composition of power-relations in society, culture and scholarship. The last category among the three is related the most to our discussion.

The ideological underpinnings of academic systems in connection with the intercultural and interdisciplinary scholarship will be an important object of  ideological analysis. In general, there are three kinds of academic-ideological tendencies: political control by totalitarian politics; academic domination by privileged elites of a social hierarchy; and popular domination by the masses in a totally commercialized society. All kinds of academic ideological domination influence the direction of the humanities, restricting their intellectual freedom and scientific innovation. These extra-academic factors play a significant role in the scholarly development of the humanities, making the latter further unproductive or inefficient. Thus, ideological study is not limited to any special field in the humanities. In contrast, it is the part of the formation and production of the entire humanities, dominating their multiple organization. Intercultural studies can help unmask the ideological underpinnings of different cultural traditions through examining the dominating mechanisms with their different scholarly manifestations.

6.  Rationality in the Comparative Humanities

Ideological domination has different sources, including spiritual inertia in the face of power. During this century, we have witnessed two remarkable types of influential theoretical discourses: the pseudo-scientific and the artistic-rhetorical. The former employs unfounded dogmatic statements to guide improper social practice, while the latter employs the irrelevant verbal media in order to mislead socio-cultural practice. These two spiritual tendencies, regardless of their divergent characters, can be variously manipulated. The intellectual direction and stylistic tendency of the humanities are obviously determined by social systems, especially when the former tend to weaken the traditional subjective spontaneity and the objective reference of theoretical discourse. The epistemological fashion of the existing academic framework has a dependent, rather than an independent, character which might offer an indirect image of the determination of the spiritual by the social or technological. The rhetorical or artistic style of producing theoretical discourse in the humanities is actually a sign of rebellion against or  yielding to social power. On the other hand, the pseudo-scientific style of theoretical humanist discourse which prevailed two decades ago cannot provide more constructive judgments, either. After all, compared with the situation at the beginning of this century, We have still lacked a satisfactory epistemological foundation of the human sciences today. Despite the wide range of opinions of the ideal of such a scientific system, the reasonable question must be still raised whether the pertinent or desirable relationship between theoretical discourse and  social systems should remain the object of the humanities. If the relationship is mainly a one-way street, we should be more careful about employing the former to interpret the latter, especially in the context of non-Western societies. If the Western humanities are not required to effectively explain the Western societies, they can  no further be employed to explain non-Western societies, either. Mankind, however. requires the exact knowledge of society and culture just as much as that of nature and technique.  Both kinds of knowledge are necessary for the improvement of human life. Such a crucial connection between knowledge and reality is regrettably blurred by those avant-garde theoretical discourses which are in essence parasitic on socio-technical power. In accordance therewith, the artistic function would replace the scientific in the discourses of the “post-scientific” humanities. Through renovated intellectual strategies, we can penetrate into that improper domination in which the various social forces attempt to dominate the cultural practice in democratic circumstances. This domination is directly or indirectly carried out through ideological manipulation, even if unconsciously. Unconscious wrong practice, however, is just as blameworthy as that which is conscious. We need the scientific, not the pseudo-scientific; we need the artistic but not that which function irrelevantly. Thus, we still need the rational, but pertinently employed. Without rationality, social existence cannot be maintained. Even the advocates of intellectual irrationalism can only subsist on the basis of social conditions derived from rational methodologies: spiritual irrationalism is in fact parasitic on technical rationalism.

Socio-historical contexts and theoretical discourses have different sets of causal, functional and axiological constitutions; they are far from corresponding to each other in every respect. Their interaction, however, contains different patterns of  positive or negative effects.  Their interaction has to do with interpretive, causal and valuational efficiency. With respect to explanatory efficiency, theoretical discourses can be too weak or too strong for the socio-historical contexts. In any case, the lack of the pertinent scientific quality of the humanities makes it difficult to render judgment; and we also lack the qualified intellectual equipment to organize intellectual and social practice.

The inappropriateness of both the pseudo-scientific and the artistic theoretical discourses of the humanities in their relation to social life during this century reminds us that the theoretical discourses of the human sciences need to be organized in terms of an expanded rationality. In the face of the natural sciences we need to strengthen the social and human sciences through an expanded intercultural perspective. The intercultural era does not only mean that non-Western culture and scholarship can enrich the West or augment the utilitarian image of non-Western traditions: it also brings with it the reconstruction of the Geisteswissenschaften on an international scale. Nevertheless, the human sciences are still based on the Western tradition. The more critical practice of non-Western scholarly agents within shared intellectual heritage will constructively influence  the humanities in all areas. Extreme anti-Western scholarly viewpoints originating in the West are harmful to the intellectual development of non-Western cultures; extreme pro-Western viewpoints originating in the East could be harmful to the intellectul development of Western culture. The historico-geographical dimensions and the beneficial aspects should be separated through ideological analysis. Semiotic ideological studies attempt to semantically analyze social compounds formed in history through interdisciplinary approaches.

We still need another kind of ideological analysis to assist in clarifying the relation between social dominance and the subjective attitudes of the individual. Intercultural and interdisciplinary scholarship provides concrete directions towards this goal. The conscientious Socratic and Confucian attitude towards subjective practice, if taken as our guide, can still inform the attitudinal level of the humanities. Seen from an intercultural point of view, the potential of reconstruction of the Western humanities is obviously constrained by the professional structure guided by individualism and protectionism bound up with social success in academic life. There is little concern about and regard for the negative aspects of scholarly and social history. The temporary social success of a scholarly effort often justifies its being a discipline, so that its academic value is merely due to it historical effect. By contrast, such tendencies are not valid in the natural sciences . The human sciences thus  amount to the collection of thought of  historically successful scholarly elites, lacking a further intellectual unification. A more “subjective” rather than “social” criterion, however, can lead to a more independent judgment about scholarly success in distinction from professional recognition. The subjective aspect can deliver the methodological tool for penetrating into the historical and institutional manipulations determining  professional academia. It is at this point that the traditional spiritual aspect and the modern technical aspect operatively link up with each other. An attitudinal analysis unmasks the inconsistent criteria used in judging scientific achievements in academic life. The requirement of active subjective practice leads to a better understanding of the deficiency of direct and indirect social references in  theoretical discourses. Ideologically speaking, the pseudo-scientific and the artistic tendency allow theoretical discourse to be more easily manipulated by political and non-political power. Epistemologically speaking, the artistic distortion seems to be more misleading than others at present. In light of this, the traditional Eastern and Western term “truth” can still play a rectifying role at least with respect to the desirability of distinguishing the scientific from the artistic or the more scientific from the less scientific. The term “truth” can be operatively linked with this distinction between the scientific and the non-scientific through a minimalist epistemological commitment. The lack of this traditional verbal index, however, is one of the reasons for the present operational confusion between the scientific and the artistic in contemporary theoretical discourses.