Zhu Guangqian: One of the most erroneous mistakes made by Chinese scholars is the "digression attack" | culture

How to transform academia

Zhu Guangqian

▍ Lack of the spirit of loving the truth

Most Chinese scholars cannot yet exceed the superficial view of "applying what they have learned". They think that scholarship is valuable for usefulness, which is really the second problem. Scholarship was originally practical, and most of the previous people studied scholarship because it was practical, but human thought gradually developed, new opportunities gradually emerged, curiosity was stronger than a day, and philosophy of science exceeded the practical goal and went to the road of seeking truth. Truth is useful, but even if it is useless, scientists and philosophers will never stand idly by. Precisely speaking, curiosity and curiosity are human nature. Dressing and eating is a requirement of the nature of the foot, and the pursuit of academic truth is only the requirement of the nature of the foot. Who's to say that this has practicality and that has no practicality? If we are to contribute to scholarship, we must cultivate a spirit of love of truth as soon as possible, and put pragmatism on the second level.

The most typical example of this is the phenomenon of overemphasizing the pragmatism of scientific research and not paying attention to or even combating basic theoretical research.

▍ Lack of spirit of scientific criticism

The second shortcoming is the spirit of arbitrariness and blind obedience and non-criticism, which is probably the poison of the "exclusivity" doctrine of the mainland's previous academic circles. Arbitrariness is to believe in oneself, and blind obedience is to trust others. Believing in his own stubborn doctrine, thinking that this must be right, and when others argue with him, he is just old-fashioned and deaf. This is the spirit of not being critical of oneself. Those who trust others always see the wind and steer and catch up with the trend. This is the spirit of being too unprovective of others. Arbitrariness and blind obedience, both because there is no spirit of criticism, are the heartworms of academia. We should fight against these evil roots.

To say that we do not have the spirit of criticism is not to say that we do not criticize, and we are also very good at manipulating right and wrong, but without the spirit of scientific criticism, we often make logical mistakes. The most common fallacy is to make a claim without giving a reason, or to cite a reason without finding a few examples to justify it.

Another mistake is that mainland scholars have committed the most mistakes, that is, off-topic attacks. They have not studied the doctrine which is incompatible with their private opinions very clearly, have not calmly criticized it with reasons, and first they have scolded the person who advocates that doctrine in a mess, and the better ones have to laugh at him. Cynicism has become the specialty of some people. Some of these people, because of their mental weakness, and some of them are deliberately negative, to fight against the enemy. Of course, the negative person is not, and the person who forces him to be negative is also to blame. One of them violates the truth, and the other causes people to violate the truth, and they are equally harmful to the truth. Truth is a peaceful world, in which there are no races, no boundaries, no portals, no prejudices, and everyone who goes to this world is a friend.

Arbitrariness is to trust oneself, and those who have certain achievements will set up a mountain and use various advantages and resources to crack down on dissidents. Blind obedience is to believe in others, and people without achievements worship others too blindly, have no ideas and opinions, and lose themselves. The essence of these problems is that there is no embodiment of scientific thinking, and academic exchanges are not carried out in accordance with scientific principles and methods at all.

▍ Lack of loyalty and solid spirit

"To know is to know, not to know is not to know", this law is very important in academia. Because in itself, ignorance is the fuse of knowledge, and if you do not know what you know, knowing will no longer become the target. As far as others are concerned, if they do not know what they do not know, if they believe in me, they will spread false rumors. The front is self-deception, the back is deception. To deceive oneself is to mislead oneself. Therefore, scientists advocate a doctrine that often spends their whole life carefully observing experimental thinking. It was only when he himself was very thorough and felt very reliable that he made the results of the research public. This is the faithfulness of scholars!

Now the publication fever of mainland scholars is too crazy. Many people have not made a real effort in scholarship, so they write books and establishories to deceive the world and steal their names. There are also some people, who are not very thorough in their own academics, and come to introduce their careers through hearsay.

The other side of loyalty is not plagiarism. It was I who invented it, and I dare to say that it was invented by me; it was not invented by me, and it should not be plundered of beauty. What percentage of mainland works are now created by the authors themselves? How many percent of the claims are he based on? What the hero sees, sometimes or unexpectedly, is the same. But in this transitional era, there are many tricks in the academic community. On the surface, this matter does not seem to have a bad impact on scholarship, but the dissection of psychology, plagiarism because the love is too shallow, and the vanity is too heavy. These two kinds of psychology are in fundamental conflict with the spirit of research scholarship, and we must break this habit and strive to be faithful.

▍ Lack of independent creative spirit

The imitation heat is greater than the creation heat, and it is also a big crisis in the mainland academic circles. Imitation is not very harmful, but if you want your scholarship to improve day by day, you must have imitation to create further. What we imitate now begins with creation. If we can only keep it, there is no new creation, the environment will change in the future, and we will not have new knowledge and ability to adapt, and we will be eliminated. We make up a quarter of humanity, our responsibilities are greater than those of other peoples, and we certainly cannot follow others with our arms fully in our arms and eyes closed.

The method of attaching one-sided to the wind association was not without one-sided interests. But at the same time, the energy is absorbed to one side, and all kinds of scholarship cannot develop evenly, even if the kind of unique learning does not have "other mountains of stone" and cannot continue to progress. This is still a small thing, and imitation has worse shortcomings. The spirit of independent creation is the exorcist of academic evolution. The imitation heat is too heavy, and this spirit of independent creation is gradually eroded by it. For more than two thousand years after the Warring States period, the mainland's academic progress was slow, because this imitation fever defeated the creation fever. Now we ask ourselves, "Hasn't this two-thousand-year-old fox tail been cut off?" ”

▍ Lack of the spirit of objective experimentation

The most common shortcoming of mainland scholars is that good theories are lightly examined. Academic principles and laws must be based on facts, and facts must be observed and experimented on the ground to be truly precise. Modern science has developed rapidly for two reasons. First, in terms of attitude, objective gradually becomes more dominant than subjective; second, in terms of methodology, examines the gradual superiority of utopian power. These two causes cannot be separated in fact, but they are objective and therefore remain examined. Objectivity is more effective than subjective, and inspection is more effective than fantasy, because subjectivity and fantasy are often mistaken by stereotypes and illusions, and detection can provide ideological materials on the one hand, and correct ideological errors on the other hand, so that the results are true and precise. Therefore, modern science has been more importantly examined.

This article is excerpted from Zhu Guangqian's article "How to Transform The Academic Community" published in the Shanghai Shishi Xinbao on March 30 and 31, 1922, and is now included in the Complete Works of Zhu Guangqian (Volume VIII) and transferred from "Chinese Good Scholars". Welcome to share personally, media reprint please contact the copyright owner.