Liang Shuming's "Eastern and Western Culture and Philosophy" unfolds in a comparison of Chinese and Western Indian philosophy (especially Chinese and Western philosophy), and captures the characteristics of Chinese philosophy in the comparison. In Liang Shuming's own view, the characteristics of Chinese philosophy are mainly reflected in two aspects. First, the problems are different, that is, when setting the objects dealt with by philosophy, Western and Indian philosophy regard the objects as static objects, while Chinese philosophy Then the object is regarded as changing; secondly, the methods are different. Static objects require reason (that is, Western-style rigorous logic), while changing objects require intuition (that is, Chinese-style essential intuition); because it is grasping For static objects, Westerners use clear and fixed concepts. In order to grasp the changing objects, the Chinese concept is moving and blended. From the differences between these two aspects, Liang Shuming further derived several major characteristics of Chinese philosophy. In order to highlight these characteristics, you may wish to continue to use ordinal words to remind you. Third, the difference between affirmative attitudes and non-identified attitudes. The static objects and fixed concepts allow Westerners to have a clear attitude towards the relationship between the two; the concepts of changing objects and activities allow Chinese people to have a flexible attitude towards the relationship between the two. Liang Shuming said in the section "Confucius' Uncertain Attitude" in the book:

To believe that a truth becomes extreme when pushed down is not consistent with the middle. Facts seem to be round. If you identify one point and push it down with reason, it will become a straight line and cannot be round, and the result will be a dead end. For example, if you push down the principle of loving people and loving things, you will end up with Mozi’s style of loving Christ and fraternity. Pushing it further, you will reach the compassion of Buddhism and not killing. If you push it further, you must not only kill animals but also plants. ; Don’t destroy even a stone or a tree. Then how do you take this path? If you can't reach the last step, then why don't you push your reasoning halfway? You have to know that not only can you not deduce it later, but you should not judge it from the beginning and deduce it from the beginning! Therefore, Confucius advocated, "Be kind to relatives and benevolent to the people, benevolent to the people and love things." In my intuition, if the affection for relatives is stronger, it is stronger; if it is weaker for others, it is worse; if it is weaker for living things, it is worse again; if it is worse for wood and stone, it is even worse. If you judge deep affection and much love as a theorem and use reason to deduce it, and make it an objective truth and adhere to it, it will become a formality, without true feelings, ridiculous and ridiculous, how can you completely rely on your intuition! However, most people always have to deduce theorems. If you follow his meaning, the Confucius said that "fishing without the outline, cruising without shooting", "a gentleman is far away from the cook" would be unreasonable: if you want to fish, how should you follow the outline? If you don't have the outline, don't fish. If you want to kill, shoot the host, if you don’t want to shoot the host, don’t kill. If you can’t bear to eat meat, don’t kill. If you kill, why bother to cook far away? Most people want to be reasonable, but Confucius is unreasonable. Most people want to be reasonable, but Confucius is simply unreasonable! However, as a result, ordinary people can't understand it, but Confucius can't understand it.

The thinking/reasoning of ordinary people here is exactly the Western determinative thinking/reasoning. This kind of Western cognition-based thinking/intelligence is persistent, while Chinese cognition-oriented thinking/intuition is like Shun who "holds both ends and uses the middle." Therefore, "holding on to the one" and "using the middle" are the differences between China and the West. The fourth point is different. Here, "holding both ends" includes both "intuitive and natural seeking for the center" and "rational selection and seeking for the center." "Double, harmony, balance, and center are all the fundamental thoughts of Confucius, so his approach always focuses on In this regard, he does not take the path of singleness, but the path of duality. Singleness is afraid of going astray, but doubleness must be reconciled and balanced. It can be said that the central meaning of the Chinese is harmony. They believe: "There is no absolute in the universe." If there is such a thing as a single, extreme, one-sided, or uncoordinated thing, it is also hidden and invisible. Everything that appears is relative, dual, moderate, balanced, and harmonious. , are all like this." And here contains the different attitudes of Chinese philosophy and Indian philosophy, which is Confucius' praise of "life". This can be regarded as the fifth characteristic of Chinese philosophy in comparison. Liang Shuming quoted a lot of famous sayings from Confucianism, such as "The great virtue of heaven is life", "Life is called Yi", "What is the word of heaven? How can the four seasons move, and how can all things come into being", "To achieve neutrality, what is the position of heaven?" , all things are growing."...Then he concluded: "The Confucius have nothing else but to obey the principles of nature and to grow lively and smoothly. He believes that the universe always grows forward, and if all things want to grow, they can just let them grow and not Adding creation will surely harmonize with the universe, making the whole universe full of vitality and spring.

"After using the praise of life to distinguish China from India (the nirvana of death), what is the difference between China and the West in the attitude towards life? Liang Shuming believes that it is the "attitude of not caring about the interests and benefits" in "life" . He said: "This is the most distinctive and distinctive attitude of Confucianism, which was not lost until later, and became the custom of the Chinese people, which is the unique color of Chinese culture. "This can be said to be the sixth characteristic of Chinese philosophy in comparison. This attitude of not caring about interests is different from the attitude of Mozi and the West. Liang Shuming made it clear when comparing the two attitudes What is the attitude of not caring about interests and affirming its value:

When we live in the middle, we often distinguish a purpose and a means: for example, avoiding the cold, avoiding the heat, distinguishing between men and women, this is the purpose ;Building a house is a means. By analogy, most of them are like this. This is the tool in our life-reason-for the convenience of distribution and evaluation, it is pretended to be different; if it is true, then it is. It is wrong and dangerous. What is wrong and dangerous? It is to cut the whole life into two parts; to make one part completely attached to the other part, and it has no meaning in itself. It has meaning; if it is divided, the period of life when building the house will become an accessory to the period of life of the house, and it will no longer have meaning. If you maintain this attitude everywhere, then all your life will be turned into a means—— For example, turning housing into a means of food and breath, turning food and breath into a means of reproduction - and the whole life is not lived, but lived as something else. Life is nothing, not only the whole life is nothing, but also the moment-to-moment life is not lived for the sake of another moment. Most ordinary people have this kind of wrong distinction - especially smart and lustful people. -As a result, the interest in life dries up, and the pursuit of the meaning, purpose, value, etc. of life causes the emotions to waver and break apart. Confucius is not an ordinary person. He sees nothing like this and teaches others not to be like this. Mozi is still an ordinary person. , What I saw was that this was not the case, and it got worse. Mozi always asked "why" in everything, and used his rational calculations to the extreme, so he was not buried because he was of no use. ; Mourning is short, because he wants to do harm; joy is not wanted, because he does not know what he is doing. This thorough rationality kills intuition and taste completely; in fact, our lives are dominated by intuition everywhere, in fact. There is no "why". Every time you smile or cry, there is a "why" and a "purpose". These are just intuitions.

The above six points are indeed true. However, in the reality of China's struggle to save the nation at that time, the "attitude of not caring about the interests" was completely opposite to the times' requirement that philosophy be a weapon to save the nation; in the Western industrial system and education system, it has become a reality in China. When it comes to important factors, "non-determination attitude" and "non-determination concept" are completely opposed to the principles of the industrial system and the methods of the educational system. Due to the opposition between these two aspects, the characteristics of Chinese philosophy that Liang Shuming talked about lost their relevance. The influence of the times, but on the other hand, it highlights what the philosophy of the times has ignored: a rich and flexible "mind". It is this unique understanding of Chinese mind-nature philosophy that has become a cultural confidence of New Confucianism. .