Hou Wailu's Study of Fang Yizhi's Thought and Its Exemplary Significance
The comprehensive evaluation of Fang Yizhi's thought is the focus of Hou Wailu's later aca-demic research.Through the continuous efforts of Hou and his academic team,the full picture of Fang Yizhi's thought,which has been obscured for nearly 300 years,has been made known to the world,resto-ring his philosophical status in the history of Chinese culture.Hou Wailu's research on Fang Yizhi's thought has the general characteristics of the theory and method of the General History of Chinese Thought(《中 国思想通史》),but also has its own characteristics.Mr.Hou Wailu's study of Fang Yizhi's thought not only analyzes the contradictory roots of the tragedy of Fang Yizhi's life and its inner thought tension with the premise of social history research,but also gives Fang Yizhi's thought a worldwide philo-sophical significance with a macroscopic vision of the world in the comparative evaluation of Chinese and Western Enlightenment thought.Hou Wailu's study of Fang Yizhi's thought has become history,and certainly needs to be treated critically,but the historiographical theory,methodology and goal he carried out in his study,i.e.,to establish a more complete Marxism system of the history of Chinese thought through the nationalization of the Marxism historical science,is of far-reaching exemplary significance,and can still be of useful inspiration for people today.It is of far-reaching exemplary significance and can still provide useful inspiration today.