by daneen
A Brief History of Chinese Philosophy was originally an English lecture given by Mr. Feng Youlan at the University of Pennsylvania in 1947, and was later translated into Chinese by his students and published.
at the beginning of the preface, Mr. Wang said frankly: "A minor historian is not an abridged masterpiece. Name, list of schools also. Not the whole history is in the chest, and it is in the realm. Only in this way, those who read his books feel that although the choice is refined, the language is still auspicious. " Mr. Wang naturally has a whole history in his chest, and he has the momentum of "a million soldiers in Fan's chest". Mr. Wang cramped and skinned, and clearly showed the philosophical context of 2 years to everyone. After reading this book, I still have a lot of puzzles. I am really stupid in my qualifications.
A good history must have three qualities: talent, learning and knowledge. Talent, exquisite writing; Knowing people, the selection of materials is also accurate; Scholars are be adept at of historical materials. Although Mr. Wang emphasizes that the short story is intended to be popular, it is difficult to show his knowledge. I think this book has all three, and I just realized that some people say that there are few readable books (except translated ones) in mainland China after 49.
I have summed up some basic problems myself.
first, philosophy and religion.
Philosophy,
is the idea of systematic reflection on life.
But not many people have reflective thoughts about life, and even fewer people have systematic reflective thoughts.
This kind of thought is called reflection because it takes life as the object. Produce the theory of life, cosmology and epistemology. Yuzhou is the background of life, and thought itself is knowledge.
Religion,
Every great religion has a philosophy at its core. In fact, every major religion is a philosophy plus a certain necessary superstructure, including superstitions, dogmas, rituals and organizations.
second, the three religions in China.
It is often said that there are three religions in China: Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Actually, it is not.
Confucianism is not a religion, Taoism is just a philosophical school, and Taoism is a religion. There is a great difference between Taoism and Taoism. Their doctrines are different, even the opposite: Taoism teaches people to obey nature, while Taoism teaches people to oppose nature and has the scientific spirit of conquering nature.
The spiritual foundation of China culture is ethics (especially Confucian ethics), not religion (at least not formal and organized religion).
third, moral value and super-moral value.
a value higher than moral value can be called "super moral value". Love is a moral value; Loving God (the universe) is a super moral value (more precisely, loving God is a quasi-super moral value, and according to Spinoza, loving the universe is a super moral value).
The pursuit of transcendence is one of human innate desires, and China people are no exception. China people are not religious, because they are all philosophical, in which they satisfy their pursuit beyond this world. They also expressed and appreciated the super-moral values in philosophy, and lived according to philosophy, and they also experienced these super-moral values.
People often pursue super-moral values through religion, but as science advances, religion takes a step back. Fortunately, out of religion, there is philosophy, which provides a way for mankind to obtain higher value-a more direct way than religion. The higher value that is familiar through philosophy is even more pure than that obtained through religion, because the latter is mixed with imagination and superstition.
In the future world, mankind will replace religion with philosophy.
Therefore, man should not necessarily be religious, but he must be philosophical.
fourth, "the philosophy of joining the WTO" and "the philosophy of being born"
Although there are all kinds of people, all kinds of people are human beings. What is the highest possible achievement when it comes to whether a person is a person? China philosopher's answer is to be a saint. The highest achievement of a saint is the identity of the individual and the universe. If people want to get this identity, do they have to leave society or even deny "life"?
Some philosophers have replied that this is necessary. This kind of philosophy is the so-called "born philosophy"
another kind of philosophy, which pays attention to human relations and world affairs in society. This kind of philosophy only talks about moral value, and will not or will not talk about super-moral value. That is, what is commonly called "the philosophy of joining the WTO".
As far as the main tradition of China's philosophy is concerned, China's philosophy was born after joining the WTO.
V. Function of Philosophy
According to the tradition of China's philosophy, the function of philosophy is not to increase positive knowledge, but to improve the realm of the mind-to reach the realm beyond the worldly world and gain value higher than moral value.
in China's philosophical tradition, there is a difference between learning and being Tao.
VI. Being a saint inside and being a king outside
China's philosophy holds that a person is a saint if he has achieved the unity of "joining the WTO and being born" not only in theory but also in action. The spiritual achievements of China saints are equivalent to those of Buddhists and saints of Western religions. But the saints in China are not people who don't do things.
His personality is the personality of the sage inside and the king outside. Neisheng is talking about his accomplishment; Foreign king means its function in society. The so-called sage inside and king outside only means that the person with the highest spiritual achievement can be king according to the truth, and it is most suitable to be king. Whether you actually have the opportunity to be king is irrelevant, which is another matter.
The task of China's philosophy is to make people have the personality of being a saint inside and a king outside.
Because the theme of philosophy is the way of being sage inside and being king outside, philosophy should not only acquire this knowledge, but also cultivate this personality. Not only to know it, but also to experience it.
For this question, Mr. Feng quoted a long passage from mr jin yuelin to illustrate the relationship between philosophy of knowledge and philosophy of experience:
"China philosophers are Socrates to varying degrees. This is so because morality, politics, reflective thinking and knowledge are all unified in a philosopher's body; He leads by example. It is an integral part of his philosophy to live according to his philosophical beliefs ..... There is a philosopher's proposition (the unity of joining the WTO and being born) in him ... He is like Socrates, and his philosophy is not used for bureaucratic jargon. He is not a dusty and trite philosopher, locked in a study, sitting in an armchair, and out of life. For him, philosophy has never been just a conceptual model for human understanding, but a system of proverbs inherent in his actions; In extreme cases, his philosophy can be said to be his biography. "
When it comes to mr jin yuelin, I can't help asking three big question marks in my mind. Professor Jin is naturally a philosophical master who leads by example, but his understanding of life and emotion puzzles me. It is said that he was willing to be her neighbor because Lin Huiyin never married. Is this also within his philosophical system? Why did he write such a strange life biography for himself?
VII. Expressions of China's Philosophy
The statements and articles of China philosophers have no apparent connection, and these statements and articles are not formal philosophical works. The manifestations of China's philosophy are quotations, letters, many famous sayings, many metaphors and examples, and full of hints.
Implication is not only the characteristic of China's philosophy, but also the ideal of all China arts. For example, poetry pursues "endless words and endless meanings". This ideal also influenced the expression of philosophers. For example, in Zhuangzi, it is said that two saints meet each other without saying anything, because "the Tao survives after witnessing"; When I get home, I say, there is no way. This feature has always affected people in China in all aspects. In the West, when two people fall in love, they will say "I love you" boldly and bluntly, while in China, if people want to say "the moon represents my heart", it is impossible to find out for themselves whether they love you or not.
VIII. Characteristics of Philosophy
Philosophy is a systematic reflection on life. When thinking, people are often influenced and restricted by the environment. In a specific environment, people feel life in a specific way, so his philosophy also has specific emphasis and omission. This constitutes the characteristics of philosophy.
IX. Background of China's Philosophy
China is a mainland country. People in ancient China thought that the land was the world, so the creation of "the world" and "within the four seas" represented both the world and the country. As a maritime country, the Greeks could not understand that these words were synonymous. In other words, because of this basic background, they created and developed different philosophies.
Ancient philosophers in China and Greece not only lived in different geographical conditions, but also lived in different economic conditions. China is a mainland country, with agriculture as its mainstay and land as its livelihood. Land is the basic source of wealth. Therefore, in the eyes of China's philosophers, there is a distinction between "origin" and "end". "Ben" refers to agriculture, and "End" refers to commerce. Therefore, throughout the history of China, agriculture is the main line, and the policies are "emphasizing this and neglecting the end". Therefore, the two main occupations related to land "farmer" and "scholar-landlord" are worthy of pride. As a maritime country, Greece is so different. Before the establishment of a powerful empire, they were even scattered in their small city-states (which is probably why there are many princesses and princes in fairy tales in the west, and there is basically only one prince in China, which kills each other badly), and they are fragmented, relying on the ocean and trade. (About the origin, politics and economy of ancient Greece, there is a detailed argument in Gu Zhun Diary)
Family system. Agriculture depends on land, and land is immobile, so people are imprisoned and have lived in the same place for generations, thus establishing the family system in China. It is undoubtedly one of the most complicated and best organized systems in the world. There are five traditional social relations in China: monarch and minister, father and son, brother, couple and friend, among which three are family relations, and the other two can be understood by family. For the same reason, ancestor worship has also developed. Confucianism mostly demonstrates the rationality of this social system, or the theoretical explanation of this system.
this family system is the product of both geographical and economic conditions. In recent years, in view of the confusion and confusion in China society, some scholars hope to rebuild the family system, which may no longer be appropriate in terms of the conditions on which it depends.
X. "Opposing the Movement of Tao"
China's philosophy and Greek philosophy have a supported theory, that is, everything in nature and human society goes to one extreme, and it goes to the other extreme. To borrow Hegel's words, "everything contains its own negation". Laozi also has a similar saying: "Oppose the movement of Tao". Confucianism also said: "When it is cold, it will be summer, and when it is summer, it will be cold"; "The sun is full, and the moon is full."
Mr. Feng said that this theory had a far-reaching influence on the Chinese nation and made great contributions to the Chinese nation's victory in overcoming the difficulties it encountered in its long history. In the anti-fascist war, the people of China spent the war with the belief that "the darkness is about to pass and the dawn is coming". In this sense, traitors can't do it, after all, it won't last long.
XI. Neo-Confucianism and Neo-Taoism
Confucianism emphasizes people's social responsibility, and at home, it emphasizes what is natural and spontaneous within people. In the third and fourth centuries, some people who came home tried to make Taoism closer to Confucianism, and in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, some Confucian people tried to make Confucianism closer to Taoism. We call these Taoists Neo-Taoists and these Confucian people Neo-Confucianists.
It is this change that makes China's philosophy come into the world.
XII. Methodology of China's Philosophy
This is a very important issue.
northrop said that there are two main types of concepts, one is obtained by intuition and the other is obtained by hypothesis.
There are two methods in metaphysics: positive method and negative method. The essence of positive method is to say what is the object of metaphysics; The essence of negative method is not to say it. In doing so, the negative method also reveals its nature and some aspects, which can not be said by positive description and analysis.
western philosophy takes the so-called "hypothetical concept" as the starting point, while China's philosophy takes the so-called "intuitive concept" as the starting point. As a result, positive methods naturally dominate in western philosophy, and negative methods naturally dominate in China's philosophy.
Buddhism strengthens the negative methods of Taoism. The combination of Taoism and Buddhism produced Zen, and the philosophy of Zen can be said to be a silent philosophy. Whoever understands and understands the meaning of silence will gain something from the metaphysical object.
in the west, Kant once applied the negative method of metaphysics. In his Critique of Pure Reason, he discovered the unknowable, namely ontology. In the view of Kant and other western philosophers, the unknowable is the unknowable, so we can't "say anything" to it. But for people who are used to negative methods, it is natural that they should not "say anything" to the unknowable because it is unknowable.
The task of metaphysics is not to say something to the unknowable; It's just about saying something about the fact that we don't know. Anyone who knows that the unknowable is unknowable knows something about it. Kant has done a lot of work on this.
the negative method is essentially a mystical method. All the great metaphysical systems in philosophy, whether they are positive or negative in methodology, all put themselves on the label of "mysticism". Plato, Aristotle and Spinoza used positive methods very well, but the vertices of their systems were also mysterious.
the positive method and the negative method are not contradictory, but complement each other. A complete metaphysical system should start with positive methods and end with negative methods.
In the history of China's philosophy, the positive method has never been fully developed. Therefore, China's philosophy has always lacked clear thoughts, which is one of the reasons why China's philosophy is characterized by simplicity. Clear thinking is not the purpose of philosophy, but it must be an indispensable training that every philosopher needs. It is indeed what China philosophers need. On the other hand, there has never been a fully developed negative method in the history of western philosophy.
Only the combination of the two can produce future philosophy.
Before using negative methods, philosophy must adopt positive methods; Before we can achieve the simplicity of philosophy, we must pass through the complexity of philosophy.
people must talk a lot first and then keep silent.