ABSTRACT
The reason is that, despite divergent opinions, exploring this very topic indicates the inception of an active self-awareness, a self-reflection on the current academic discourse system adopted by Chinese academia. Although these debates still mainly revolve around specific subject matters within each discipline, the very topic of the contemporary Chinese academic discourse system is gradually revealing something much profound. Discussions and disputes surrounding the construction of the contemporary Chinese academic discourse system will have important influences and far-reaching implications in the developmental history of contemporary Chinese scholarship in a special way. In fact, it is this long-standing challenge that in the present conjuncture leads us to the task of the contemporary construction of the Chinese academic discourse system. The essence of this change lies in ridding historical science of its apprenticeship to natural science so that it can become an autonomous and self-authorising academic system: “historical thought is free from the domination of natural science, and is an autonomous science.”.
