Orientalistyka między „tradycyjną” filologią a potrzebami współczesności. W poszukiwaniu metodologii orientalistyki

In the article, the author attempts to describe Oriental studies as a separate and independent discipline of sciences, growing from their philological roots. The analysis and further proposals are based above all on Polish experiences of Oriental studies, which, for historical reasons, have nothing to do with E. Said’s ‘orientalism’. Classical Oriental studies were determined by their philological character and in some cases until now are understood as a philological discipline. However, contemporary developments in the humanities and in the world require a new approach to the study of Oriental cultures. This new attitude requires, for example, a new methodology. In fact, contemporary Oriental studies embrace such non-philological branches like Buddhist studies, Islamic economy or Chinese philosophy and so on. The author discusses several proposals in this concern, starting from a new definition of Oriental studies, not as an interdisciplinary but a transdisciplinary (in the sense of Welsch’s transculturalism) discipline. Such a perspective allows to offer some ideas, which can create a transdisciplinary methodology based on replication of methodologies of other ‘traditional’ disciplines (like history, anthropology, literary criticism and so on) linked with Feyerabend’s epistemological anarchism.