How can the Chinese New Year Book Review | the era of AI, how to re-feel the world?

Cover news reporter Zhang Jie

Philosophy always gives the impression of being deep and cold. There are many philosophical topics that most people, even if they know that they are important, often do not have the energy and ability to delve into them. Philosophical treatises and writings, which seem to belong only to the ivory tower, are also generally respected. Fortunately, there are philosophers like Chen Jiaying, who make philosophy very professional, but also pay special attention to making philosophy fresh, grounded, and energetic. In this way, the public, who have not been trained in philosophical systems, but are curious about some philosophical questions, are also interested in philosophical thinking.

Among the several books read during the Spring Festival holiday, one of them is Chen Jiaying's "Perception, Rational Knowledge, Self-Cognition". This is not a difficult collection of philosophical papers, nor a research monograph, but a transcript of a series of lectures he has given in recent years at East China Normal University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, and Fudan University. These philosophers, who have always been concerned with how people live in the world, talk to us about his years of thinking in an easy-to-understand way. The theme of the lecture was Chen Jiaying's long-term thinking and research on "perception", "rational knowledge", "self-awareness" and so on. Starting from the subtle conceptual analysis, he runs through and opens up the philosophical essence behind the various cognitive phenomena that we are commonplace, leading us to see the connection between them and the connection with our lives.

Many of the analyses in the book are very delicate, fresh and interesting. For example, he mentioned that the priority of vision in man's multi-sensory perception has an ontological status. Other sensations, such as hearing or smelling, capture images or extensions or attributes of an existent, and the result is only a clue, and cannot directly reach the object itself. But "seeing" reaches directly to the object of things themselves. To "see" a person is to see the existence of that person itself. But if you just "hear" some sounds, you can't directly judge the existence of this person.

Because seeing is already "yes", seeing is directly connected to "yes", connected to existence.

We will also notice that many people speak English and are often not directly said "knowledgeable". But if a modern person who understands Khitan or Sanskrit can interpret oracle bones, Egyptian hieroglyphs, etc., then it is amazing, wow, great intellectual. Chen Jiaying helped us analyze, "Throwing a child on the streets of Britain and the United States, in a few months, he learned a word of English, he did not have to think about it, he learned it by emotional experience." However, Sanskrit is not, if you want to learn Sanskrit well, you must be a linguist, understand grammar, understand ancient history, otherwise you can't learn, you have to understand a lot of truths before you can learn Sanskrit. From this he extended that "system knowledge" and "common sense of life and knowledge of what should be used" seem to be useless are two different things. "Useful is knowledge when used, and conversely, system knowledge is useless." English is useful, Sanskrit doesn't seem to be useful unless you teach. Systematic knowledge seems to have developed for the sake of truth and truth. ”

When it comes to the two points of perception and reason, some people may object: "It is said that Western talents are divided into two points, and Chinese talk about the unity of heaven and man!" Here Chen Jiaying would patiently remind him, "When you say this, didn't you first divide the West from the East?" Besides, if you are one with heaven and man, don't you also have two points between heaven and man first? If heaven and man are not separated from beginning to end, and are always one, then what else is there? You can't talk about people without separating, big and small, how much, men and women, young and old, heaven and earth, yin and yang, this is what we learned in the first grade of primary school. The two points are not the obsession of philosophers, they are not characteristic of Western thought, without which we cannot begin to think, we cannot speak. ”

Such a delicate discernment, if it were not for the philosophers reminding us, we really would not have thought about it here. And these reflections don't require you to have particularly advanced tools for philosophical analysis, but if you don't have enough patience and a pure intellectual curiosity, you may not be able to enter the world he is talking about, and you will not know what he is talking about. But once you enter, follow his train of thought step by step, pursue things, think about concepts, you will find all kinds of wonderful thinking realms. Even if you don't understand it sometimes, it doesn't matter, just read it, there is always some place where the train of thought can keep up. Since "Perception, Knowledge, Self-Knowledge" is a collection of lectures, the reading process is like being in a classroom, and a room of teachers and students are far away from the hustle and bustle, caring for the world in a conceptual way, vivid and pure, this scene is undoubtedly touching.

Some people may say, what is the use of thinking about this. The great usefulness of uselessness, this great truth, will not be elaborated on here. It is worth reminding that chen Jiaying not only provides some in-depth and innovative thinking perspectives, but more importantly, helps us develop a habit and literacy of loving thinking and reasoning. In this sense, having such a ability to think is really not "useless". In the era of information explosion, under the situation of technology and digitalization, delicate and open thinking habits can help us re-generate clear judgments and feelings about the world, and have more strength to deal with current problems.

Although it cannot be said that people who love to think must be kind, when a person has the ability to think more broadly and consider more details, his arbitrary judgment and behavior will be less, the probability of cruelty will be reduced, and our society will be more harmonious and beautiful. In the words of Chen Jiaying, with the perceptual knowledge, the knowledge of feeling, fundamentally speaking, "is to understand the world in connection with understanding oneself, to understand oneself in connection with the world, to put it more simply, is to live to understand." ”