The winners of the Nobel Prize in natural sciences, those who are first-rate, who have created a new era, or who have left their names in the history of natural science in the world, are invariably philosophers.
--Zhang Rulun
It is very accidental and obligatory for me to come here today to teach, why? If nothing else, for the word "philosophy." In 2008, at the Chinese Culture Forum in Shanghai, Chinese economist Professor Yu Yongding pointed out in his speech: "Our country does not want to suffer philosophical losses. "I strongly agree with this statement.
Our country has been reforming and opening up for more than thirty years now, and the official figures show that we send out millions of international students every year, but none of them have won the Nobel Prize. What is the rationale for this? I think it's definitely not that Chinese brains are bad, but that Chinese lack something. You can look up the people who have won the Nobel Prize in natural science, those who are first-class, who have created a new era, or who have left their names in the history of natural science in the world, are all philosophers. In interviews in his later years, Einstein often said: "I am a philosopher first, and a scientist second." ”
Einstein
In the 1970s, there was a Belgian Nobel laureate in chemistry named Prigogine, and many of his philosophical works have been translated into Chinese. When the brother of one of my colleagues was admitted to the graduate school of Prigaojin, when they first met, Prigaojin talked about Laozi philosophy, but we Chinese science students did not know a word, and we were sweating and sweating, and we could only hear people say how clever Laozi philosophy was. The winner of Japan's first Nobel Prize in physics was Hideki Yukawa, and his autobiography has been translated into Chinese, which you can go to see. He said he invented the meson thanks to the Zhuangzi he read when he was sixteen years old. Nils Bohr, the founder of modern quantum mechanics, after understanding our ancient Chinese philosophy, deliberately designed our Tai Chi diagram to his family emblem. Natural scientists abroad study Chinese philosophy, and there are many examples of inspiration from Chinese philosophy.
Prigogine
In 2014, president Xi Jinping took the time to convene experts from various countries to aid China at the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia, and also held a symposium, including an expert who is a Nobel Laureate in Physics in the United States, who said that the hardware facilities of Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University are largely different from the world's famous universities such as Princeton University, Harvard University, and Stanford University, and even surpass them in some places. Sometimes, our country pays foreign experts even higher than foreign universities or scientific research institutions, but why are foreign scientists reluctant to come to China to work? He pointed out in one sentence: China does not have an atmosphere of criticism. The atmosphere of criticism is that people can point out the faults of old things before there can be new breakthroughs. He also said that he was able to keep moving forward thanks to his early philosophical career. These are some of the adverse effects of the absence of philosophy on China, but only on a very small and very small aspect.
What is even more frightening is that, first, without philosophy, we cannot produce masters in China. Second, without philosophy, our nation is a ridiculous nation. Our country is not interested in philosophy, it has been since modern times. I once wrote an article on the development of philosophy in China before the founding of New China. Before the founding of New China, Several Powerful People's Magnates dominated Chinese scholarship, such as Fu Sinian and Hu Shi. They even openly say that Chinese philosophy departments should be closed. Fu Sinian even wrote to Hu Shi: "Thank goodness, we have no philosophy Chinese, which is a great blessing for Chinese. "You can imagine what the situation of Chinese literature, history and philosophy would be if such a person were allowed to preside over China's academic work." You can go to any book on Western civilization, not to mention the works of Western thinkers and artists, but only to read other types of books, you will find that the West attaches great importance to philosophy, and even Western politicians will always say that the core of their culture is philosophy when they make reports.
Fu Sinian (first from left), Hu Shi (second from left)
In 1973, when French President Pompidou visited China for the first time, he gave a toast full of philosophical quotations. This is very different from us. The average person in our country now, even highly educated, holds these three views on philosophy: First, he holds that philosophy is a political lesson in college. Second, think that philosophy is a bunch of useless cheaters who eat nonsense. The third point of view is slightly better, thinking that philosophy is still OK, but it is not very useful to talk about it.
When I was studying in Germany, about the middle and late 1980s, the material conditions in China were too far from those in the West, and I was stimulated a lot when I first arrived in Germany. One of the excitements was that once my German teacher took me to a supermarket the size of a football field after class, and after watching it, he asked me how I felt. I said no. So he continued to ask me, "Why don't you feel good?" Do you have one in China? I replied, "China doesn't." "He was weird and didn't understand why I wasn't interested in the big supermarkets in Germany. I continued to reply to him: "I came to your Germany not because I was interested in your supermarkets, but because I was interested in your German culture, especially your philosophy. Your German philosophy is a treasure of mankind and the greatest contribution of germans to mankind in the world. After he listened, he was silent.
Then there was one thing that struck me tremendously. It was during the lesson that I took a very difficult course, a study of a late work by Heidegger, which had caused a sensation in the world when it had just been published, and the compiler of this posthumous work was my mentor, so he took the lead in holding a discussion meeting on this work in the whole world. Classes are held from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., with only one break in between, but no food. At that time, no matter how bad the weather, there was always an old German lady on crutches, who came to take a seat like us to listen to the class, and after the class, she would take the bus with me and then slide home with a limp in the snow and ice. At this age, she also came to study philosophy, neither for a degree, nor to become a professor, nor to find a job to eat, but for interest. My love of philosophy struck me so much that I thought: If China were to catch up with the material conditions in Germany, thirty years would be enough. But if there were people like her, I'm afraid there wouldn't necessarily be in three hundred years. Because our Chinese is too practical, everything we do is very useful, if it is not useful, we will not learn.
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Lun
He is a director of the Chinese Society for the History of Philosophy, the vice president of the Shanghai Society for the Comparison of Chinese and Western Philosophy and Culture, a distinguished professor of Fudan University, the director of the Department of Chinese Philosophy in the School of Philosophy, and a doctoral supervisor. He is a special editorial board member of the journal "Social Sciences Abroad" and the editor-in-chief of the "Contemporary Chinese Philosophy Series", and enjoys the special allowance of the State Council. His research interests include German classical philosophy, modern German philosophy, political philosophy, moral philosophy, pre-Qin Zhuzi, Confucian philosophy, etc.
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Editor: Niu Yajie
Review: Gao Qiaoyan
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