ABSTRACT
Zhang Xuecheng's famous assertion that "all the Six Classics are all history" is generally recognized as a revolution in the study, or the hermeneutic tradition, of Chinese classics. It is well known that Zhang's emphasis on the concepts of Tao, historicity, evolution, and praxis not only greatly influenced his interpretation of classics but also the development of later Chinese intellectual history. As a rebellion against Platonism, philosophical hermeneutics carries a strong anti-intellectualistic and anti-rationalistic tendency, and this is why philosophical hermeneutics can be associated with deconstruction and post-modernism. Zhang's thought represents a very important intellectual trend in both early modem and modem China. The comparison between Zhang's thought and modem philosophical hermeneutics, which carries a strong anti-intellectualism implication, will improve our understanding of the question of why Zhang's thought was a major threat to the "rise of intellectualism" in modem Chinese intellectual history.
