Zhao Dunhua: The Chinese experience of German philosophy

【Scholar Profile】Zhao Dunhua, Liberal Arts Chair Professor of the Department of Philosophy of Peking University, Famous Teacher of National Colleges and Universities, Former Director of the Department of Philosophy and Department of Religious Studies of Peking University, Convener of the Sixth Philosophy Discipline Review Group of the Academic Degree Committee of the State Council, Deputy Director of the Philosophy Steering Committee of the Ministry of Education, Vice Chairman of the All-China Society for the History of Foreign Philosophy, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Modern Western Philosophical Society, and Vice President of the Chinese Religious Society. His major works include "Fifteen Hundred Years of Christian Philosophy", "A Brief History of Western Philosophy", and "Cross-Cultural Studies of Human Nature and Ethics".

Recently, a study was made on the history and current situation of German philosophy in China. The spread of Western philosophy in China began in the 1930s with German philosophy as the mainstream. There are four reasons for this: First, from the perspective of the international environment, 1870-1945 was the golden period of the development of German philosophy, and Western countries such as Britain and France followed German philosophers; second, in the 1930s, Chinese students who went abroad during the May Fourth period returned to China to study the mainstream of Western philosophy at that time, that is, German philosophy, and after returning to China, they taught, translated and published German philosophical works on the chair of the philosophy department of domestic universities; third, in 1931, after the "9.18" incident, the national anti-Japanese clamor was high. Chinese "brought" ideological resources suited to his own national conditions in German philosophy, he Lin wrote a book during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression entitled "The Attitude of the Three Great German Philosophers in Dealing with National Difficulties", which said: "The era in which we live and the era of Hegel are both strong enemies and oppression, the country is divided, and the people's hearts are scattered and decadent... Fourth, and perhaps more importantly, the Kuomintang's encirclement and suppression of the CCP's cultural front was broken, Marxist works were popular, and Soviet works on dialectics were regarded as the inheritance and development of German classical philosophy. On the basis of this consensus, after 1949, the ideas of German philosophers such as Hegel and Feuerbach were regarded as the source of Marxist philosophy and naturally became a hot topic in Chinese philosophy. Since the reform and opening up, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and phenomenology have become all the rage, Hegelianism has been renewed in dependence on Western Marxism, and Kantianism has also been revived because of its enlightenment spirit. Until now, German philosophy has remained the "leading" chinese study of Western philosophy.

In 2020, I gave a lecture entitled "Why Chinese Are Passionate About German Philosophy", analyzing the reasons for the profound influence of German philosophy on the Chinese philosophical community. Chinese treatment of Western philosophy is not an unselected "take-ism", but a selective introduction according to needs, and German philosophy has adapted to the spirit of the times of anti-Japanese salvation, propaganda marxism, enlightenment and openness in different periods, so it has become the first choice for Chinese "take-ism". Moreover, "taking" is not "copying" or complete copying, but transforming and absorbing and digesting according to one's own needs, so as to become an ideological resource that nourishes oneself. Here's a story, 2004 is the two-hundredth anniversary of Kant's death, the world is commemorating, Peking University Philosophy Department also held an international symposium, invited some German philosophers to communicate with Chinese scholars. Toward the end, a German colleague asked me a little confusedly: "How is there a difference between Kant that you Chinese talk about and Kant that we talk about?" I replied that it is normal to be different, because when we read Kant's works, we choose the angle that suits the needs of Chinese to understand Kant, and we want to know Kant's theoretical and practical significance for understanding Chinese tradition and reality, which is a unique perspective. In addition, although the conference papers were published in English or German, most of these papers were initially written in Chinese and then translated Chinese into English or German. Papers written in Chinese, even if translated into foreign languages, still inevitably have the characteristics of Chinese thinking, and there are of course differences in thinking and expression from papers that are thought or written entirely in English or German. This difference does not mean that there is a distinction between superiority and inferiority, and it does not mean that the Germans have priority over Kant's understanding and interpretation; Chinese the unique angle of understanding, Chinese unique way of expression and thinking must be unauthentic, and only the understanding and expression of the writings of German philosophers in German is authentic, I think it cannot be said. In fact, the German counterpart also admitted that he had learned a lot from his Chinese counterparts that they had overlooked.

Chinese why "enthusiastic" German philosophy is asked, a way of asking questions that implies value judgments, and "enthusiasm" means "preference" or even "blind obedience". German philosophy is vast and profound, the great philosophers have their own system, each system has its own logic, accept this logic, all empirical phenomena in the system can be explained, all principles can be proved, and it is of great attraction to learners. If we regard a certain logic of German philosophy as a fixed mindset, we are bound to indulge in a specific system, unable to extricate ourselves, unable to adapt to changes in the empirical world, and particularly difficult to deal with the ever-changing science and technology. In recent decades, German philosophy has lost the creativity that once led Western philosophy, or clings to several strongholds of spiritual science in opposition to the natural sciences, or constantly updates the classical examinations. We cannot affirm the whole of any system of German philosophy, but must break up and reorganize, recode, and integrate fragments of "a priori logic" into modes of interpretation that conform to practice and reality. This is a bit abstract, but here's an example.

Hannah Arendt's "banal evil" narrative is very popular in China, with academia and the news media consuming the concept without critical reflection. On November 27 this year, at the "Second Kant Congress in China", I made a speech on "Mediocrity or Fundamental Evil", using the evidence of the Eichmann case to show that the perpetrators of the Nazi Holocaust, Eichmann, were not mediocre ordinary people as Arendt said, but fully conformed to Kant's definition of "fundamental evil"; Eichmann's defense in the Jerusalem court was not "thoughtless" who "lost the ability to express" as Arendt said, but fully conformed to Hegel's description of the various manifestations of "hypocrisy". Of course, Arendt is not entirely wrong, she asked the correct question of how to fight against evil in the "post-Auschwitz era", but came up with the wrong answer. In contrast, Kant and Hegel revealed the phenomenon and essence of evil more profoundly, but did not solve the paradox that "human nature determines the system, and the system determines human nature". Marx's famous saying that "the change of circumstances and the unity of human activity or self-change can only be regarded and reasonably understood as the practice of revolution" pointed out the right direction, and it is time to continue to explore and find practical ways to prevent and stop evil.

Editor: Liu Xing