Building an independent knowledge system is a key task of Chinese academic community. Photo: TUCHONG

On the new journey of the new era, accelerating the construction of an independent knowledge system for Chinese philosophy and social sciences is of great and far-reaching significance for the overall development of socialism with Chinese characteristics and for overcoming the development bottlenecks of China’s philosophy and social sciences. Academic journals shoulder an important mission in this process. In considering the role of academic journals within the academic ecosystem, it is necessary to move beyond the view that journals are merely passive containers or showcases. High-quality academic journals should not only publish strong manuscripts, but also actively plan, guide, and participate in the construction of knowledge and knowledge systems through deliberate editorial choices. In the joint endeavor to build an independent knowledge system for Chinese philosophy and social sciences, what kinds of knowledge and what kinds of knowledge systems should academic journals pursue? This article addresses the question from three perspectives.

From 'Chinese practice' to 'global significance:' Original exploration and expression of knowledge

Comprehensive academic journals and specialized journals each have their own positioning. Comprehensive journals emphasize the intersection of multiple disciplines and aim to selectively present the distinctive development characteristics of different disciplines as well as the overall integration of the disciplinary landscape. The selection of disciplinary directions—primarily reflected in the design of columns and special issues—should not attempt to cover everything, and the resulting papers should not be a miscellaneous assortment. For every journal, the primary criterion in selecting papers should be originality.

First, it is necessary to sharpen the refinement of identifying concepts, attach greater importance to the pioneering nature of academic categories and propositions, promote integration across fields and the crossing of disciplinary boundaries, and thereby enhance the originality of knowledge production. Originality often arises from “terminological revolutions” grounded in creative insights. On one hand, the construction and evolution of knowledge systems depend on the impetus and stimulus provided by such “terminological evolutions.” On the other hand, “terminologies” are the crystallization of thought and the seeds of ideas; they are the linguistic vehicles of theoretical, practical, and policy innovations. At present, a series of important identifying concepts has taken shape, such as “Chinese modernization,” “cultural agency,” “whole-process people’s democracy,” and “a community with a shared future for humanity.” Journals should consciously focus on these identifying concepts and propositions that embody the characteristics of the times, organizing systematic research around them and coordinating with comprehensive and specialized journals that share similar interests. In this way, we can work together to deepen disciplinary foundations and enrich theoretical interpretation, gradually building an academic and discourse system that brings together logical coherence with historical development and aligns internal theoretical growth with the evolution of knowledge structures.

Second, the design of columns, special topics, and key issues should respect disciplinary norms and reflect the theoretical rigor and frontier orientation of the research field, so as to demonstrate creative value in sustained research. Journals should publish more high-quality works from international and domestic frontier fields across disciplines, and more major research findings that address global, forward-looking, and strategic issues in national and regional economic and social development. They should also carry more academic achievements that are innovative—especially original—in the realm of basic theory.

In modern Western epistemology, the concept of “enhancement” often refers to the capacity of sensory experience to generate new knowledge beyond rational, abstract deduction. Contemporary epistemology, with its deeper understanding of the nature of knowledge, now treats “knowledge enhancement” as having two meanings: first, the generation of new growth points of knowledge (that is, knowledge that forms part of a disciplinary knowledge system); and second, the stimulation of new ideas (meaningful assertions that advance the times).

Practical knowledge refers to the knowledge and understanding obtained through concrete action and accumulated experience. As Lenin noted, “Practice is higher than (theoretical) knowledge, for it has not only the dignity of universality, but also of immediate actuality.” Practice is the source of theory and the precondition for the formation of scientific theory. Within practical knowledge, we should pay particular attention to those scientific theories and bodies of knowledge that profoundly reveal the universal laws governing the development of nature, human society, and human thought, as well as the laws that underlie the development of Chinese modernization, world socialism, and human society more broadly.

Academic journals should attend to the long-term logic and internal laws of knowledge evolution, viewing academic achievements as an organic whole that continually grows. The dimensions for evaluating journal quality and contribution should expand from merely “identifying achievements” to “analyzing the evolution of value,” from focusing on “where achievements are published” to examining “how ideas grow,” and from measuring “academic GDP” to recognizing “how knowledge is enhanced.” In the digital age, journals should actively explore the practical mechanisms by which enhancement can be achieved in knowledge supply, knowledge dissemination, and knowledge application, thereby strengthening the capacity of traditional print journals to expand their influence via new media platforms.

By promoting the integration of journals and media, forms of knowledge dissemination such as graphics, online audio editions, and official accounts can be brought together into a new media matrix, providing innovative contexts for the diversified and visualized communication of academic achievements. Such “re-dissemination” helps to make academic knowledge more intuitive, improves the compatibility between academic journals and the language of new media communication, and facilitates the mutual transformation and value addition of the two, thereby amplifying journal influence.

From 'overlapping concensus' to 'knowledge genealogy:' The integrated production and dissemination of knowledge

Integration refers to the clustering, intensification, and aggregation of processes of knowledge creation, dissemination, and application. A knowledge innovation system built on knowledge clusters and innovation networks is characterized by multiple levels, multiple modes, multiple nodes, and multiple actors, all of which are conducive to realizing knowledge creation, dissemination, and application.

The integration of knowledge requires strengthening the agglomeration effect of innovation, extracting several fundamental theoretical assertions in groups on the basis of identifying concepts, and examining the internal logic of their systematic integration. On the one hand, it is necessary to reinforce disciplinary support for identifying concepts and to seek comprehensive interpretations and answers from multiple disciplines and perspectives. On the other hand, based on a series of identifying concepts and terms, several assertions and propositions should be distilled and presented as a coherent theoretical whole, one that reflects the unity of history and structure and displays the dual characteristics of the “genealogy” (historical dimension) and “system” (structural dimension) of disciplinary scholarship.

In the new era, academic journals should endeavor to promote the integrated generation and dissemination of knowledge and to build a new type of academic community. This new type of academic community takes academic journals as its core, with academic production, academic dissemination, knowledge application, and academic evaluation as its basic functions, shaping an academic ecosystem in which digital technology empowers value creation and enables the co-creation of academic value. Journals should each uphold their own principles, cultivate their own distinctive features, and make their own contributions, forming an array that takes the promotion of multiple overlapping consensuses as its developmental orientation. Through clustering, they should advance the integrated knowledge genealogy of concept systems, academic systems, and discourse systems, jointly promoting the openness and inclusiveness of the academic ecosystem and the co-creation and sharing of knowledge in an era of media transformation, and fulfilling the mission of the times in the construction of China’s independent knowledge system.

Chen Yiping is a member of the Leading Party Members’ Group of the Anhui Academy of Social Sciences, and the editor-in-chief of Jianghuai Tribune.