Does truth exist in the world? Where is the truth, in the heart, in things, or in the spiritual world on the other side? Today we are going to talk about Eastern and Western thought, about the different perceptions of the source of truth. Today we continue to share china's ancient book classic "Zhongyong", earlier we used several issues to share what is the real "Zhongyong Way", today we combined with the idea of "Zhongyong" to talk about: truth.
In the seventh chapter of the Zhongyong, Confucius said, "Everyone knows 'to know'; to drive away the trap of the various gus (gǔ) (huò), and to know the unknown." Everyone knows: 'to know'; to choose the middle, not to keep the month. ”
Confucius said that everyone feels smart and feels that they know a lot of truths, but they often fall into the trap of the net, and they do not know how to hide. The "poppy" here is a kind of net used for fishing in ancient times. Everyone thinks he is smart and knows a lot of knowledge that can make him practice the middle way, but few can last for a month. We often say that we understand a lot of truths, but still can't live this life well, probably this is the truth. There are two misunderstandings here, the first is that the knowledge we think of may not be true knowledge, or it may just be a trap of knowledge.
There are many such cognitive biases in psychology, such as self-evidence bias, which is very typical. The more you think you know a lot of people, the easier it is to find evidence to support your point of view, which tends to get them deeper and deeper into some kind of prejudice. The second is that even if you know a lot of knowledge, it is useless if you don't hon it in reality. Earlier we said that the idea of moderation is full of practical spirit, and the premise of using it for the people is to cling to both ends, the way of moderation is not a metaphysical theory of thought, it is a kind of practical wisdom, moderation is not a fixed standard model, only in practice to constantly try and make mistakes and adjustments, is the real way of moderation.
In Confucius's mind, there is one person who is a model of moderation, that is, Confucius's disciple Yan Hui, Confucius said, "Huizhi is also a man, choose moderation, and get a good, then fist and fist (yīng) and Fú (fú) lost." This means that Yan Hui's way of being a person is to choose moderation to practice. He gets any kind of goodness, any kind of good, and he clings to it tightly and does not let it go again. Yan Hui was Confucius's proud protégé, he was 30 years younger than Confucius, and among Confucius's disciples, virtue was the first, and even the only good disciple in Confucius's heart. In the Analects, Confucius praised him as "his heart is not against benevolence in March", which is very remarkable.
The Middle Way is a kind of practical wisdom, which actually means that this wisdom, or truth, is not an absolute, universal, eternal truth, this truth is changing, so how can this truth be obtained? In today's popular parlance, it is "practice produces true knowledge", if you use Confucian thought, it is: gewu zhizhi. Lattice object is a kind of practice, and to know the lattice object is to understand wisdom from practice. This is the core of the Confucian Cheng Zhu Lixue thought. In fact, in the middle of the mediocrity, it also profoundly embodies this practical spirit.
On the question of how truth is obtained, Eastern and Western thoughts are completely different. The great Greek philosopher Plato put forward the famous "theory of ideas", distinguishing between the world of phenomena and the world of ideas, he believed that the world of phenomena is the shadow of the world of ideas, unreal and illusory, and the world of ideas is eternal and real. Plato also told the story of the "cave metaphor". It is said that a group of people have been living in the cave, hands and feet tied, with their backs to the entrance of the cave, in front of a white wall, and a bunch of bonfires behind them. On that white wall, they could see the shadow of the campfire shining on the outside world, but since they couldn't see anything else, the group thought that the shadow was the real world.
Later, a person accidentally climbed out of the cave and saw the real world, that is, the world of ideas. He was shocked to see for the first time something real in the sun. But when he returned to the cave and told everyone that the shadows were fake, the people in the cave thought that the man was crazy and that there was nothing in the world but the shadows on the walls.
Through this "cave metaphor," Plato shows that the truth that philosophy seeks does not exist in the phenomena we see and perceive, but in another world, which Plato calls "the world of ideas." Plato said that truth is knowledge about the "knowable" world, not about the "sensible" world. Truth exists in the world of ideas, is pure and perfect, just like mathematics and geometry, and the real world is imperfect and flawed, just as the world of phenomena has no perfect geometry, and we should pursue the world of ideas, eternal and absolute truth, which is Plato's view of truth.
Plato's thought, especially the "theory of ideas", has a profound impact on Western thought and culture, and Westerners have always believed that there is a world on the other side, and that world is real and perfect, and the real world is a copy of the world of ideas, and it is still an imperfect copy.
The philosopher Whitehead said that the entire history of Western philosophy is nothing more than Plato's footnote.
Therefore, Western thought, represented by Plato, pays more attention to the abstract spiritual world, pays more attention to logic, reasoning and deduction, and finds truth through thinking. Confucianism in our country is the opposite, we are more focused on the concrete things of reality, and the truth exists in the concrete things, especially in each of our specific practical activities. The cultural differences between the East and the West are actually reflected in the two mainstream ideological theories of ancient times.
In the "University", it is said: "To know in the lattice, the object is then known." To bring peace to the world, we must govern the country; to govern the country, we must cultivate our homes; to cultivate our homes, we must cultivate ourselves; to cultivate ourselves, we must have a correct mind; to be righteous, we must be sincere; if we want to be sincere, we must know; and we must know that knowledge lies in qualities. Whether it is self-cultivation and family governance or peace in the world, it is actually a specific practice, not a certain rational speculation. Although Wang Yangming believes that true knowledge exists in conscience, in order to truly understand true knowledge, "refining on things" is very important, and the refining here is not only practice, but also needs to be tempered. About which one is more important, thought or practice.
Wang Yangming said in the "Records of Transmission and Practice": "People must be tempered in things, and it is beneficial to do kung fu." If you have to be quiet, you will be chaotic in case of trouble, and you will not grow in the end. That quiet time kung fu is also almost convergent, and the real drowning is also. ”
Wang Yangming said that people must temper in specific things to be beneficial. If you just like to be quiet and like to meditate, then things will be busy and eventually do not grow. The kung fu of meditation is only superficially convergent, but in fact it is indulgent and indulgent, which is not in line with the fundamental spirit of conscience, and many people like to meditate and meditate, thinking that they can gain wisdom, which is a complete misunderstanding of Wang Yangming's "mind thinking", which is tantamount to an indulgence and indulgence. Wang Yangming's four sentences "To Conscience", the next two sentences say: Knowing good and knowing evil is conscience; removing evil for good is a special thing. To conscience is to temper with conscience. This kind of thinking, adhering to the idea of "Moderation", is also full of practical spirit, which is completely different from the Western culture, from advocating and finding the perfect truth in the spirit.
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