Being at the same time a national key discipline and a key discipline of Tianjin City, MARXIST PHILOSOPHY DISCIPLINE at Nankai University plays an important role in philosophical exploration and creation in China. Once be named as “Nankai School”, it has formed its own research methods and doctrines in the domains like Marxist basic theory and socio-political philosophy and become an important center of Marxist philosophy research and a training base for future Marxist scholars in China.
After the reestablishment of Nankai University’s department of philosophy in 1962, a group of young scholars, of whom Professor CHEN Yan-qing is a representative, began to work here. This marks the beginning of the construction of the Marxist philosophy discipline in Nankai. After the Cultural Revolution, the discipline has finally developed along the right lines and made a contribution in the movements of “Bringing order out of chaos“ and “Emancipating the mind”. At the late seventies of the last century, Professor Chen published Philosophical Critique of the Gang of Four, reflecting and criticizing systematically the “ten years of turmoil”. Since the mid-eighties, the “Nankai Team” of which Chen Yan-qing, Wang Nan-shi, and Li Shu-mei are the representative members has participated actively in the national reformation of the textbook system of Marxist philosophy. Its main achievement, Principles of Marxist Philosophy (co-edited by Chen Yan-qing, Xiao Qian, and Huang Nan-sen) has been widely recognized and used. Introduction to Modern Materialism, another important work of the “Nankai Team”, tries to restore the authentic spirit of Marxist philosophy on the one hand, and gives it a new interpretation by starting from the contemporary situation on the other hand. It represents therefore a remarkable new research approach. Since the early nineties, the discipline has begun to concentrate on the problems revolving around the transformation of Chinese society and established thereby a socio-political philosophy research direction with Nankai characters. With the publications like Theory of Civil Society, Social Philosophy, and Dialectical Determinism of History, the discipline plays an irreplaceable role in this area. Since the beginning of the 21th century, the discipline has begun to concentrate upon the problems of Western Marxism and the sinicization of Marxism and made essential acclaimed contributions in the domains like critical theory, analytic Marxism, and Maoism.
With the efforts of generations of scholars, Marxist philosophy discipline at Nankai University has formed its own approach and style. All the research directions cooperate and keep pace with each other. With a powerful and lively research team, the discipline gives considerations to both basic research and actual problems and lays equal stress on interpretation of texts and construction of systems. The older generation of scholars like Professor Chen retain a keen interest in the direction and development of the discipline. The middle-aged scholars like Wang Nan-shi, Yan Meng-wei, Li Shu-mei, and Wang Xin-shen who enjoy great academic reputation are the main-force of research. Young scholars like Xie Yong-kang, Wang Shi-zhong, Mo Lei, Zhao Ya-qiong, and Qi Yan-hong, concentrating on their respective research domain, are coming into prominence as scholars. At the same time, Xing Yuan-min, Yang Gui-hua, and other excellent alumni have given their great support both to the education of the students and to the development of the discipline as part-time professors of the College of Philosophy.
