【Quest】
Author: Zhang Jiacai (Professor, Director of Beijing Language and Culture University, Director of China Cultural Development Research Center, studied with Liu Wenying for Master of Chinese Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy)
For a long time, when it comes to the analysis and study of dreams, many people only know Freud in the West and the psychoanalytic school he founded. Mr. Liu Wenying, a researcher of Chinese philosophy and culture, has proved with a large number of historical documents that in ancient China for thousands of years, there was not only a mysterious superstition of divination of dreams, but also a serious exploration of dreams, and in the long historical development, ancient Chinese scholars have explored the extremely special and universal spiritual phenomenon of dreams in many aspects with their own special way of thinking and thinking methods, thus forming their own special concepts, categories and theoretical theories.
Mr. Liu Wenying unveiled the mystery of ancient Chinese dream interpretation, laid the foundation for the new chinese dream theory, and he is also an explorer of spiritual system theory and primitive thinking.
Biography of scholars
Liu Wenying (1939-2005), a native of Qianxian County, Shaanxi Province. Philosopher, historian of philosophy, and culturalist. He graduated from the Department of Philosophy of Chinese University in 1962, taught at Lanzhou University and Nankai University successively, and served as deputy director of the Academic Committee and director of the Department of Philosophy of Lanzhou University, member of the Academic Council of Nankai University, director of the Center for Chinese Philosophy Research, and vice president of the Chinese Society for the History of Philosophy. He is the author of "The Long Historical Source: A New Exploration of Primitive Thinking and Primitive Culture", "The Superstition of Dreams and the Exploration of Dreams", "Spiritual System and New Dream Theory", "Dreams and Chinese Culture", "Ancient Chinese Concepts of Time and Space", "Ancient Chinese Consciousness Concepts", "Wang Fu Commentary", "Confucian Civilization: The Transcendence of Tradition and Tradition", etc., and edited "History of Chinese Philosophy" and "Historiography of Chinese Philosophy History". His writings, compiled by his disciples, were compiled into a nine-volume collection of Liu Wen's English Collection, published by Lanzhou University Press in 2021, with a total of about 5.5 million words. Images courtesy of the author
Images courtesy of the author
Liu Wenying wrote an inscription for the cultural heritage of Hemudu. Images courtesy of the author
Start your philosophical life with Dialectics of Nature
In February 1939, Liu Wenying was born in Qianxian County, Shaanxi Province, to a small family of clerks. When he was in middle school, he came into contact with Engels's Dialectics of Nature, felt as if a window to a new life had opened in front of him, and became interested in philosophy from then on. In 1957, Liu Wenying was admitted to the Philosophy Department of Chinese University as he wished, and on campus, he immersed himself in classic texts and famous teachers, and often heard lectures by professors from other schools such as Feng Youlan. In 1962, Liu Wenying graduated from university, initially planned to stay on campus to teach, and then responded to the call to work at Lanzhou University to engage in the teaching of Marxist philosophy.
He follows the frontiers of philosophical research, is interested in dialectical logic, is proficient in reading and translating philosophical theoretical works in Russian, and has a certain level of German and English. Around 1964, he published three translations, including "Several Questions on the Study of Consciousness" in the Philosophical Translation Series. Coincidentally, the study of spirituality and thinking later became the field of research into which he devoted a great deal of effort and made outstanding contributions. Even during the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Liu Wenying still struggled on the bumpy academic road with his dedication to academic research.
Insisting on studying and learning during the Cultural Revolution was not an easy task. On the one hand, there is a lack of literature, on the other hand, many experts and scholars have been beaten into another book and entered the "cowshed". Fortunately, at this time, the young Mr. Liu Wenying met the "learning mentor" Xin Anting and Fang Xiaobo and other old gentlemen.
Mr. Xin Anting graduated from the History Department of Peking University in 1935, and later went to Yan'an to participate in the revolution, and he had a deep understanding of literature, history and philosophy. Xin Lao is a book lover and a person who loves talent, and Lan Da's studious young people are willing to approach him privately, and Mr. Liu Wenying is one of them. At that time, Mr. Liu re-analyzed Qu Yuan's "Heavenly Questions" from a philosophical point of view, and came to many new conclusions that were different from those of ancient and modern masters, and he was not sure in his heart. One day, he didn't say hello and went directly to find Elder Xin. Elder Xin not only received him warmly, but also gave great encouragement to Mr. Liu and found several books for him to refer to. The pair often interacted with each other and collaborated on papers on the philosophy of education.
In order to study the concept of time and space, Mr. Liu Wenying consulted experts in various disciplines, and Elder Xin helped a lot. Once, Mr. Liu Wenying had to trace the origin of several terms in multiple languages, and asked for advice from many sources but could not understand them. After Xin Lao found out, he personally wrote to Professor Zhang Huanting of Nanjing Normal University (now Nanjing Normal University) and further contacted Professor Fan Cunzhong of Nanjing University, and the problem was finally resolved satisfactorily. Elder Xin also personally took Mr. Liu to the Northwest Normal University to get acquainted with Mr. Fang Xiaobo. Since then, Mr. Liu Wenying has been very close to Fang Lao's questions and difficulties.
Mr. Fang Xiaobo was born in Tongcheng, Anhui Province, his grandfather was Fang Zongcheng, one of the famous masters of the late Tongcheng School, and his father was the educator Fang Shoudun. Elder Fang graduated from physics and was taught by Mr. Huang Kan and Xu Zhongshuzhu, and he was deeply accomplished in philology. Once, Mr. Liu Wenying asked Elder Fang for advice on the issue of "Yu: East and West, North and South" in the Ink Classic. Because Liang Qichao, Hu Shi and others felt quite strange that the "home" was sandwiched between east and west and north and south, and juxtaposed with the four sides as a spatial orientation. So they changed "home" to "Mongolia" and moved forward to "Mongolia, east, west, south, and north." Space includes east, west, south, and north, and the semantics seem to make sense. However, Elder Fang answered questions and clearly expressed his disagreement with this "bold doubt" and believed that this practice was "bold tampering". He first quoted the words of the Huainan Zi to explain: "The residence of the room house is also called the east family, and the east family is called the west family, although the principle of Gao Tao cannot be determined." "Whether a place is east or west is always related to the reference point." "Home" is the most important reference point of the ancients, therefore, the determination of the position of the east, west, south and north is directly related to the central point of the home, and the "Ink Classic" says that "the east and west are north and south", which is actually the east, west, south, south and north. Mr. Fang then stressed: Academic research should be rigorous and seek truth from facts. For example: "The text in the Ink Classic is extremely simple and sparse, and the words are rigorous and close, cannot be moved, and are extremely scientific and logical; if a word is changed, or a word is added or deleted, the meaning is completely wrong." "Therefore, it must be done with great caution. Mr. Liu Wenying later became more rigorous in his studies, which may be directly related to this matter.
At that time, Elder Fang was wrongly classified as a "rightist" and was in adversity, and his monograph on the Ink Classic could not be published for a long time. Mr. Liu Wenying helped Elder Fang organize the manuscript of the book, which was published by the China Social Sciences Publishing House before Mr. Fang's death. This was the later scholarly and influential Mathematics and Physics in the Ink Classic (1983). It is under the guidance of Mr. Xin Anting, Mr. Fang Xiaobo and other scholars of the older generation that Mr. Liu Wenying's learning has a new starting point.
Studying and anchoring Chinese studies from "Tianwen"
Mr. Liu Wenying's study of "Tianwen" began in the special period of the "Cultural Revolution", and I wonder how he was worried about the future and destiny of the country. In 1978, the "spring of science" came. In the same year, he published his important treatise on Chinese philosophy in the journal Wenshi Zhe, which studied tianwen.
"Heavenly Questions" is novel in conception, the whole text is poetic questions, and 172 questions are asked in a row, from the legend before the opening of the heavens and the earth to various phenomena above and below the heavens and the earth, from the rise and fall of Xia Shang Zhou to the Chu state and Qu Yuan himself, almost deep into the various fields of social and cultural thought at that time. Why was Heaven Asked written in this form? What kind of theme does the author really want to elaborate? Scholars throughout the ages have had a wide range of opinions. Mr. Liu's research shows that the question of "Heavenly Question" is a difficult question, a question about the Heavenly Dao, and a series of difficult questions, from the height of history and philosophy, serious thinking about the future and destiny of the country. "Heavenly Question" is a very peculiar and profound philosophical poem, and it is a precious ideological document. Once published, this paper was quickly introduced and commented on by "Dynamics of Literary Research", and was also praised by Yan Beiming, Hou Wailu, Jiang Liangfu and other previous scholars. Through his study of Tianwen, Mr. Liu Wenying, who was in his 30s at the time, realized how important it was for scientific research to ask questions that were fundamental and unusual, which also strengthened him to explore the complexity of philosophical research with a broader perspective.
The concept of time and space and the concept of consciousness are not only major problems in the study of the history of Chinese philosophy, but also indispensable in the study of the history of Chinese science and technology and psychology. In the past, in the study of Chinese philosophy centered on characters or works, the study of dynasties or general history, there were many important philosophical concepts or important issues involved, and many achievements were also achieved. However, due to the limitations of the body, the discussion of the ins and outs of each important issue is often intermittent and unclear.
The study of the history of ideas must exhaust its origins and seek the root causes. If the source is not clear, it is likely to only stay in describing "what it is" and not completely answering "why". Mr. Liu Wenying loves the method of tracing the origin of ideas. In fact, the history of Chinese philosophy is, in a certain sense, the history of the study of the development of philosophical concepts. Mr. Liu Wenying consciously took the ancient Chinese concept of time and space as a special topic very early, from the source of the stream, and then from the source and the flow, systematically examining the development of this concept, the change of the source flow, and the aspects it contains and involves. In the West, the traceability method is called the genesis method, Mr. Liu Wenying is not superstitious and clings to those fashionable formulations, in his view, the traceability method is actually a kind of conceptual archaeology, a new development of the "examination mirror source flow" method inherent in traditional Chinese scholarship.
It is more difficult to carry out traceability research than you can imagine. In terms of research data alone, the further you push forward, the more scarce the literature becomes. In order to solve these problems, Mr. Liu Wenying and multidisciplinary experts have worked hard to fill the gaps in the data with the help of archaeology, anthropology, ethnology, and even paleography, historical linguistics, exegesis, etc., based on some ancient historical records, ancient legends, and the original images, sources and meanings of relevant words and words. For example, in order to examine the temporal and spatial problems of ancient China, he obtained important information in the oracle bone, jin script, Naxi hieroglyphs, ancient astronomical calendars, and the customs and historical materials of ethnic minorities.
Mr. Liu found that many important terms in Chinese philosophy, originally concrete imagery, later evolved into abstract concepts, which are actually a combination of concepts and imagery. He summed up this feature as "blending names", which is one of the important features of the traditional Chinese way of thinking. His research is both conceptual and image analysis, often with the help of textual admonitions and famous objects to ensure the objectivity and reliability of research. For example, the oracle bone of the word "Qiu" is a bug, which was later composed of the glyphs of "He", "Fire", and Bugs. The Shuowen interprets "he" as a ripe grain, and "fire" is the great Mars of the "July Fire" in the Book of Verses, and the insect is considered to be the "trend" of the insect that chirps in autumn and its voice chirps. Therefore, the so-called autumn refers to the season when the crops are ripe, the "tendentious" chirping, and the great Mars seen at dusk on the west side of the sky. Such an analysis, with its basis in written exhortations, astronomical calendars, and examinations of famous objects, is refreshing and convincing. For another example, "Spring and Autumn" was not originally the abbreviation of spring, summer, autumn and winter, and the Ancestors of the Han Nationality once divided a year into only two seasons of spring and autumn or three seasons of spring, summer and autumn, and even referred to the four seasons as "spring, autumn, winter and summer". This kind of progressive understanding, Mr. Liu has obtained solid material support in historical philology, ethnology, culture and other aspects.
Mr. Liu Wenying often excavated many extremely valuable materials from neighboring disciplines that were not much concerned in the past philosophical research. For example, examining the finiteness and infinity of time and space, the Song Dynasty's "Boyaqin", the Yuan Dynasty's "Lang Huan" and the Ming Dynasty's "Dragon Zi" are generally listed as "novelists" and ignored by philosophical researchers. However, looking deeply, the views of "Boyaqin" on "there are heavens and earth outside the heavens and the earth", "Lang Huan" on "the heavens and the earth are infinite, destroyed here and become one", and "The Dragon Zi" on "the one yuan heaven and earth have a beginning, and the yuan yuan heaven and earth have no beginning" and other views are very wonderful. Mr. Liu Wenying's search for such materials has even reached the level of fascination, opening the book "Ancient Chinese Concepts of Time and Space", and such materials will jump on the paper from time to time. The book was later translated into Japanese, and the Japanese translator specially added a subtitle "From Oracle to Relativity", which reflected the research characteristics of Mr. Liu Wenying's side-by-side quotation and refinement of macros.
Approaching traditional culture from the theory of dreams
Studying the ancient Chinese art of dream-telling and dream theory, some people may think that Mr. Liu Wenying is hunting for curiosity or following Freud. In fact, the understanding of dreams involves many problems in ancient religion, philosophy and science, and is an important part of Chinese cultural history, Mr. Liu Wenying often involves the problem of dreams when studying the concept of consciousness in ancient China, and many materials that were not known in the past attracted him. He was determined to see in concrete depth how our forefathers viewed this peculiar spiritual phenomenon of humanity itself.
He found that Chinese's approach was very different from that of Westerners. The Ming Dynasty philosopher Wang Tingxiang divided dream causes into two categories: "feeling in the sense of consciousness" and "feeling in remembrance": the former is equivalent to the physical perception of modern physiology, including internal and external perception; the latter involves people's spiritual and psychological activities, and is further divided into "the sense of habit" and "the sense of cause and effect". In particular, the new concept of "cause and effect" for the first time explained the mechanism of the generation of various strange dreams, and raised the understanding of dream causes to a new level, which still has its scientific value.
In 1985, Mr. Liu Wenying's book "Consciousness concepts in ancient China" was published, in which a chapter was arranged, "Understanding and Exploration of Dreams", and some of the materials were sorted out. However, there is too much material about dreams, and they are deeply attracted to Mr. Liu. For the superstition of ancient Chinese dreams and the art of dream-divination, Mr. Liu holds an attitude of interpretation and is determined to solve the mystery of divination; for the exploration and research of ancient Chinese dreams, he holds a scientific attitude and is determined to summarize the dream theory of past dynasties. In 1989, the book "The Superstition of Dreams and the Exploration of Dreams: An Aspect of Ancient Chinese Religion, Philosophy and Science" was published. The book soon produced a stronger response at home and abroad, and there were many reviews in the media. The book was highly praised by the famous scientist Qian Xuesen, the German sinologist Eenst Schwarz, the University of Paris sinologist Jean-Pierre Dieny, and the American psychologist Jeremy Taylor. The book was later published in Korean, English, and Japanese.
In "The Superstition of Dreams and the Exploration of Dreams", Mr. Liu Wenying systematically examined the existence of dream books in Chinese dynasties, sorted out several fragments of dream books from the Dunhuang Testament, and found a dream book that has not been written in previous generations and has been preserved to this day, that is, the "New Collection of Zhou Gong Dream Interpretation Books". Subsequently, according to the clues provided by the relevant books, we looked for relevant materials from the works of the history of the past dynasties, medical literature, and Buddhist and Taoist works. He even found from the glyph of the oracle bone "dream" character that when the Chinese ancestors created the dream character, they had noticed the rotation of people's eyes when they dreamed.
The history of ancient Chinese champs is very long, and it is necessary to unravel the mysterious veil that has been cast on the superstition of cham dreams for thousands of years, and it is impossible not to make a lot of effort. Mr. Liu Wenying systematically investigated the origin and development of champolem, the historical traces of champolars, the circulation of the book of champs, the social influence of espionage superstition, and especially revealed the secrets of chamodiasis. Not only does it explore the historical evolution of the way of dream-astrology, but it also conducts in-depth research from the logical analysis of astrophicism and psychopsychoanalysis of astrology.
Mr. Liu Wenying logically summarized many ways of dreaming into three types, namely "direct interpretation", "transliteration" and "counter-explanation".
The so-called "direct solution" is characterized by the direct interpretation of a certain dream as a dream sign, that is, what is dreamed is a sign, and they are manifested as the same relationship, often embodying a certain mysterious will. For example, in "Mozi", it is said that King Wu of Zhou dreamed of the three gods and told him that you must go on a crusade against Yin. The dream is like this. King Wu thought that this was the order given to him by the three gods, and he did send troops to fight. Both the "Lü's Spring and Autumn" and the "Huainanzi" record that Yin needed to learn to drive, and after three years of study, he still had no income, and his heart was bitter. One night, he dreamed that his teacher taught him autumn driving (the art of flying). The next day, the teacher just happened to teach him to learn autumn driving by name.
"Counter-talk" is a very special kind of dream-telling technique. It is characterized by the reversal of the dream image and its reverse as a dream omen, thus indicating the personnel affairs of the foreshadowing of the dream. For example, "Zhuangzi": "Dream drinkers cry, dream weeps and hunt." The "Sayings" records that when the Sui Emperor interpreted the dream for Niu Qing'er, he said, "Dreams are born and die." There is a saying in the Yao people that dreaming of burning a house is a harbinger of getting rich.
"Transposing" is the most common and common art of astrology, but it is relatively complex. It is characterized by the transformation of the dream image in a certain form first, and then the interpreted dream image as a dream sign, thus explaining the personnel of the dream image. There are many methods, mainly including symbolism, concatenation, analogy, deciphering, word resolution, harmonic and so on. "Symbolism" is to first transform a dream image into something it symbolizes, and then interpret what is symbolized as a dream sign, thus explaining the dream and human affairs. For example, in the Book of Verses, there are: "Wei Xiong Wei Yi, the man's auspiciousness." Zheng Xuan explained: "Xiong Yi is in the mountain, and Yang Zhixiang is also." "So dreaming of bears as a sign of having a man." For another example, almost all ethnic groups in China use their teeth as a symbol of the elderly or family, and the loss of teeth in dreams is interpreted as a person who is going to die. The "continuous class method" is to first transform the dream image into something connected to it, and then interpret the person who is connected with it as a dream sign, thus explaining the personnel of the dream sign. For example, dreaming of a cup case, the guests also arrive. For another example, the Hezhe people believe that if they dream of walking on horseback, they will return empty-handed. This is associated with not driving anything on horseback. The "analogy method" is to interpret the dream image according to certain characteristics of the dream image, and to explain the personnel affairs by analogy. For example, the nobles will dream of ascending. The "deciphering method" is to first transform the dream image into a symbol or a code such as "five elements" and "gossip", and then explain the personnel accordingly. This kind of dream-divination process is complex, and modern people seem to be deciphering the cipher code. "Character interpretation" is to combine or decompose dream images according to the characteristics of Chinese characters, and explain personnel accordingly. For example, the Yellow Emperor dreamed that "the wind blows the dust and dirt of the world", so he has to be the prime minister "queen of the wind". The "harmonic method" is very similar to the "word interpretation method", except that the harmonic sound of the dream image is taken first, and then the personnel is said accordingly. For example, since the Wei and Jin dynasties, the "coffin" of the coffin has harmonized with the "official" of the official position. Dreaming of a coffin, Deguan, Ji.
Mr. Liu Wenying pointed out that with these complex ways of dreaming, the dreamer can be left and right, which of course involves corresponding psychological analysis. In order to possess and test, we have always attached importance to the psychological causes of dreams and the psychological state of the dreamer reflected in the dream image. The positive dreams, nightmares, dreams, dreams, dreams, and fearful dreams mentioned in the "Zhou Li" are all about human psychology. These social and psychological predictions with superstitious elements in zhan dreams actually contain important historical materials of philosophy and psychology.
Mr. Liu Wenying's thinking has not stopped here, he further tracked the new progress of the modern world dream theory, combined the essence of ancient Chinese dream theory with the achievements of the modern world dream theory, and put forward a series of new theories and new viewpoints on dream theory, which was vividly unfolded in the "Spiritual System and New Dream Theory" published in 1998.
Study primitive thinking in dialogue with the world
"Academic research is a conversation." Asking questions not only yourself, but also answering them yourself, is a dialogue with yourself. Not only should you pay attention to your own research object, but also reflect on your own research on the object, which is a kind of dialogue with the object. The subject of the study is more or less involved in the academic community, may not have yet formed a consensus view, must express their own opinions, comment on the views of others, which is again a kind of author-to-author dialogue. Moreover, dedicating research to the reader will inevitably lead to a dialogue between the author and the reader.
Mr. Liu Wenying's research not only has a strong sense of dialogue, but also has a full consciousness of academic dialogue worldwide, which is most prominently shown in the book "The Long Historical Source: Primitive Thinking and Primitive Culture New Exploration" published in 1995. Due to special historical conditions, Western scholars started earlier than us in the field of primitive thinking and primitive culture research, and after several generations of efforts, they have accumulated a considerable wealth of materials and put forward many valuable views. However, in Mr. Liu's view, contemporary Chinese scholars also have their own advantages. As far as research data are concerned, China has a long history, many documents, rich cultural relics, and there are 56 ethnic groups in China, the Han nationality in addition to the various legends about the flood world, but also preserved a lot of other ethnic primitive religions, art and customs of the literature, ethnic minorities also preserved a lot of primitive thinking and primitive culture materials. What's more, today we can not only take the existing achievements of Western scholars as a reference, but also get rid of some of their prejudices, so Chinese fully qualified and capable of participating in the exploration of the whole world in this field of research, and make their own contributions.
Effective dialogue with the world's academic community is inseparable from the support of innovative research results. In Mr. Liu Wenying's view, scientific research cannot only introduce the work of a certain Western scholar or school, nor can it stop at annotating their theories and views, but must stand on the position of Chinese and use Chinese vision to expound a Chinese view. For example, the production and development of primitive thinking has gone through a process of more than 3 million years, and how to specifically divide its development stage and measure its development level is a very difficult task. Primitive people have long disappeared, and there is no object for direct observation, but Mr. Liu Wenying takes the stone tools left by primitive people as the objective results of the materialization of their thinking activities, and restores the thinking process of primitive people by reproducing the process of manufacturing stone tools. Since modern archaeology has laid out a historical sequence of stone tools by time and type, and revealed the production process of various stone tools, this provides the clearest and most reliable historical clues for tracing primitive thinking. Fossil skulls, social organizations and other cultural achievements or relics of primitive people provide references and supplements for this kind of research. In this way, according to the form and basic elements of thinking activities, Mr. Liu clearly divided the development of primitive thinking into three modes of operation and three corresponding historical stages: "image-action", "image-image", and "image-concept". At the same time, these three stages are further divided into different levels such as image chaos, image association, image imagination, image deduction, image construction, image symbols and simple concepts. It is well known that Piaget's epistemology and psychology, which once divided the occurrence and development of children's thinking into several stages and levels, is recognized as an important achievement of modern philosophy and psychology, but this doctrine is limited to the development of thinking in human individuals from birth to their teens. Mr. Liu is thinking about the development of thinking since the birth of the whole human race, the work is very difficult, and the final research results are based on informative materials and are very innovative.
Mr. Liu Wenying is a person who regards scholarship as his life, and academic research is his most important way of existence. He excerpted a large number of academic materials during his lifetime, and seemed to be thinking about academic issues at any time and anywhere. Undoubtedly, he enjoyed this spiritual pleasure.
Guangming Daily (2022-03-07 16th edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily