We have an idiom in China called "drunken life and dream death", and there is also an idiom called "wine bag rice bag", in fact, this is from a negative point of view to remind us: life is not only to breathe, the most important thing is to feel the value of life, the meaning of life.
--Zhang Rulun
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that philosophy should solve several problems: First, what can we know? Second, what should we do? Third, what can we hope for? These three questions are actually a question: What is man? The French thinker Rousseau said, "Life is not the same as breathing." This sentence means that it is not normal to eat, drink and sleep every day, that is, to live. We have an idiom in China called "drunken life and dream death", and there is also an idiom called "wine bag rice bag", in fact, this is from a negative point of view to remind us: life is not only to breathe, the most important thing is to feel the value of life, the meaning of life, which is when human beings reach the philosophical stage can feel. Sometimes, I feel sad for my countrymen, because they don't seem to think that making money is a means rather than an end, and that there are more important things in life than making money.
Chinese is particularly sensitive to the impermanence of time, and has written many poems that lament time, such as: "When is the spring flower and autumn moon, how much do you know about the past", "I should be sorry for it, and I will never forget it with worry" and so on. But on the other hand, the sun and the moon are eternal, and compared with them, the things in the world are "such as morning dew, and going to the sun is more and more bitter." Philosophically speaking, it is finite and infinite. The concept of "infinity" is not considered when we have problems to solve problems, just like the disciplines of literature, history and philosophy, which cultivate vitality and conscience for the country, and we cannot ignore the construction of these disciplines because it is difficult for students in these majors to find jobs.
Liang Qichao once wrote a sentence in 1899: "Husband competitor, mother of civilization also." "His mighty brushwork has influenced many people to this day, making many people crazy." Probably many people agree with him, especially entrepreneurs, who believe that if there is no competition among human beings, there will be no scientific and technological progress and no development of production. But for this view, I don't think it's worth refuting.
We can review some of the most critical breakthroughs in human civilization: was the invention of language and writing the result of competition? Is someone giving a bonus to an inventor? Was the birth of language, the invention of paper, the invention of printing because of competition? Also, how did Newton discover gravity? Who did you compete with? Because he didn't want to compete, Einstein went to work at the Swiss patent office after graduating from university, instead of going to work at a university. Because he thinks that the patent office is a simple place, nine to five salaries, there is still a lot of time to do research. From this point of view, almost all major breakthroughs in human civilization are the result of free thought.
But there is a drawback in our cognition Chinese, we like to think about problems and do things from a utilitarian point of view. For example, if a person learns new things from a practical point of view, he often learns faster than anyone else; but it is particularly difficult for a person to seriously read some books without utilitarian purposes.
Kant's three problems are progressive. The first question is what we can recognize. At this stage, man has not yet completely freed himself from the way of thinking of the natural sciences. For example, where is the danger? Is this what I want? There was a problem first, and then there was his own judgment.
The second question is what we should do. At the human stage, what should I do? That is what Mencius said: "Man is different from the beast, and the common people go, and the gentleman survives." This means that there is only a little bit of distinction between man and beast, and that ordinary people discard it and gentlemen save it. "Mencius" should be read by everyone, it tells us why people study, first of all, to understand the changes of people and birds. To understand the change of man and fowl is to understand that man and beast are not the same thing, and that what man can do is something that beasts cannot do. In fact, Kant's "what we should do" is also this meaning, what we should do is human behavior.
The third question is more intelligent, what we can hope for. What we want determines how we arrange our lives. For example, if I want to be prime minister and the richest man, then I will arrange my life according to such standards. On the contrary, if you say that you are going to be a saint or, like Shakyamuni, to save the world from suffering, then your life arrangement is different.
Chinese culture is broad and profound, and when we Chinese preach the scriptures, histories, sub-books, and collections, we often put the "jing" in the position of command, and in the "jing", the "Zhou Yi" is placed in the first place, which is called "the first of the group classics". If the book "Zhou Yi" is really like some people say, it is to tell you how to buy a house, how to engage in feng shui, how to tell fortunes. Is our Chinese nation still a great nation? Or is it a broad and profound nation? I am afraid that by then, there will be no "Bo", no more "big", no more "essence", no more "depth", and finally only "trickery" will remain. Zhu Zi once said that some people study "Zhou Yi" to study "tricky qi". This understanding of Zhou Yi by those people is called "lost in the trick".
Another aspect is what else humans would think. Whether it is outside or within the six, what is this universe? This also goes beyond the problem-solving approach to thinking. One thinks about the finite and the infinite, for example, will the universe perish? Does the universe have a bottom? Because everyone finally found that space and time are related, if time is infinite, then is space also infinite? So when human beings think a lot about these questions, philosophy arises.
Although philosophy cannot solve many problems, it is a symbol of our human beings, so a first-class university must have a philosophy department. Mr. Xiong Shili, a famous contemporary Chinese philosopher, once said that everyone has philosophical thinking, but most people learn philosophies that are bad philosophies. What Mr. Xiong said is very reasonable, not that you do not have philosophical thinking, but that what you have learned is a relatively clumsy philosophy. For example, "Man is not for himself, and the heavens are damned", which is also a philosophy and a grasp of life, but it is relatively clumsy and not smart. If people live only to breathe, just to have money to enjoy, then what is the point of living in this world?
All in all, why is human nature an important thing in all philosophies? Because how you see people determines how you view human society, it also determines your behavior, and it may eventually affect the fate of mankind.
mentor
sheet
you
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.
This article is based on the lecture recording, exclusive copyright, please be sure to contact when reprinting;
The pictures in the text are from the Internet, if there is infringement, please contact to delete!
Editor: Niu Yajie
Review: Gao Qiaoyan
Huang Kejian |" The Distinction Between "Text" and "Quality":Confucius's Illustration of the Opportunity for Cultural Creation
Xie Wei and | Lao Tzu's unique critique of reality
Video number on! Well, stay tuned!
Make reading a habit and let the soul have the temperature
Adhering to tradition fits the contemporary