Xia Zhentao (1931-2014), courtesy name Ye Bing, was an honorary first-class professor at Chinese University and a doctoral supervisor at the School of Philosophy. He was born in 1931 in Fuzhu Village, Erdu Township (now Yangjiaotang Township), Anhua County, Hunan Province. In his early years, he studied at the local primary school, Anhua Yunjiang Junior High School, and Hunan Provincial No. 5 Middle School. In 1950, after graduating from high school, Xia Zhentao worked as a primary school teacher in the village for half a year. In July of the same year, he took the college entrance examination and later studied in the Department of Philosophy of Wuhan University. In August 1952, the departments of colleges and universities across the country were adjusted, and the Department of Philosophy of Wuhan University was merged into the Department of Philosophy of Peking University, and Xia Zhentao came to Beijing to study. Shortly after the start of the new semester, he was transferred by the Ministry of Education to graduate early and teach in the Political Teaching and Research Department of Beijing Institute of Geology. Soon after, he was sent to the Marxist-Leninist Research Department of Peking University as a graduate student to systematically study Marxist-Leninist theory. In 1954, he graduated with full honors and returned to the Political Science Department of Beijing Institute of Geology to teach. In 1975, Xia Zhentao went to work at the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, where he trained the first batch of graduate students. In 1985, he went to Chinese University to teach in the Department of Philosophy, where he continued to supervise several groups of doctoral students.
Xia Zhentao has a wide range of research areas and unique academic perspectives, and has made pioneering explorations in the fields of epistemology, practical materialism, anthropology and Chinese philosophy, and is a famous Marxist philosopher in contemporary China. He once served as the vice president of the Chinese Dialectical Materialism Research Association, the president of the Epistemological Branch, and the vice president of the Chinese Society. His research interests include the history of Chinese epistemology, Marxist philosophical principles, Marxist epistemology and anthropology. He is the author of "On the Philosophical Thought of Xunzi", "Philosophy on Purpose", "Introduction to Epistemology", "Principles of Subject-Object Correlation of Cognition", "Draft History of Chinese Epistemological Thought", "What Is Man", "Relationship, Activity Development", "Shu PineApple Collection" (Dictionary) and so on.
Xia Zhentao is a famous Marxist philosopher in contemporary China. He has studied chinese and Western, has profound theoretical attainments, and has carried out pioneering research in the fields of practical materialism, epistemology, and anthropology, and has achieved fruitful results. Xia Zhentao put forward the theory of the general structure of practice, which not only made a major breakthrough in the study of practical theory itself, but also promoted the ideological emancipation of Chinese Marxist philosophical circles. For the first time in the academic circles, he clearly put forward the view that "the purpose is an element of practice", reaffirmed the principle of initiative and subjectivity of dialectical materialism of the concept of practice, and was of great significance for breaking the narrow ideological concept of mechanical materialism and realizing the ideological emancipation of the philosophical community. He believes that practice is a dynamic process of interaction between the two material forces of subject and object, and the end, means, and results are the basic elements of practice. On this basis, Xia Zhentao reinterpreted practical materialism, emphasizing that practical materialism is a philosophy that comprehensively and truly reflects and grasps the essence of the great relationship between man and the world, thus forming his own unique philosophical research logic of "taking relationship as a frame of reference".
Xia Zhentao is one of the most representative scholars in the field of Marxist epistemological research. He introduced the general structure theory of practice into epistemology, taking the subject-object relationship as the framework and practice as the cornerstone, and conducted a comprehensive and in-depth study of the basic principles of epistemology such as the nature of cognition, the systematic structure of cognition, the law of subject-object correlation of cognition, the occurrence of cognition, the process of cognition, thinking activities, truth and value, etc., and opened up the problem domain and clarified the development direction for the epistemological research of the entire academic community. Xia Zhentao also attaches great importance to the combing of the history of Chinese and foreign epistemological thought, and he co-translated the British philosopher D. W. Heimlen's book A Brief History of Western Epistemology (Chinese Min University Press, 1987) provides an early introduction to the results of Western epistemology. Xia Zhentao took Marxist epistemological thought as a reference to re-excavate and summarize the epistemological thought in traditional Chinese philosophy, and completed the "Draft History of Chinese Epistemological Thought" (the first volume, Chinese Min University Press, 1993 edition; the second volume, Chinese Min University Press, 1996 edition), which effectively corrected the erroneous understanding that "there is no epistemological thought in traditional Chinese thought" and filled the gap in the study of the history of Chinese epistemological thought.
Xia Zhentao is also one of the main pioneers and founders of contemporary Chinese Marxist anthropology. His whole philosophical reflection on the practice of materialism, epistemology, and anthropology is, in the final analysis, to strive to achieve "the combination of knowledge and action to investigate heaven and man." He regarded Marxist anthropology as the theoretical way of thinking of "concording heaven and earth people" and advocated "hooking things, running the spirit, and studying heaven and earth inside and outside." Regarding Xia Zhentao's theoretical achievements in other fields of study, especially in the field of epistemology, we have already written articles specifically on them. This article focuses on combing through Xia Zhentao's anthropological research results and understanding the profound philosophical wisdom in them.
Pay attention to the study of "people" and promote the development of Marxist anthropology
In the late 1980s, inspired by the discussion on humanitarianism at that time, in response to the criticism of Marxist philosophy at that time that "seeing things without seeing people" and the prominence of various "people" problems in reality, Xia Zhentao's philosophical theoretical research began to turn to the problem of "people" and pay further attention to the study of people themselves. As one of the earliest scholars in mainland China to study Marxist anthropology, Xia Zhentao has outstanding academic achievements and distinct theoretical characteristics, and occupies a pivotal position in the field of Marxist anthropology research in China.
Xia Zhentao, together with Huang Fengsen and Chen Zhishang of Peking University, co-edited the Dictionary of Anthropology (China International Broadcasting Press, 1990 edition), which promoted the rise of mainland anthropological research. In the 1980s, as an emerging discipline, anthropology had no fundamental breakthrough in mainland China. How to establish a relatively independent, systematic anthropology? The Dictionary of Anthropology has made useful and pioneering explorations in this subject area and achieved high academic achievements. Some scholars commented that the Dictionary of Anthropology "combines the compilation of dictionaries with theoretical exploration, intending to begin the overall anthropological theoretical research on the premise of summarizing existing theoretical achievements and providing readers with sufficient basic knowledge of anthropology", and "the setting of its basic content framework is a relatively complete and novel anthropological theoretical schema". The compilation of this dictionary not only provides a good academic tool for future anthropological research, but also designs a grand and rigorous theoretical structure, which lays a framework foundation for subsequent anthropological research.
In addition, Xia Zhentao also participated in the writing of "Principles of Anthropology" edited by Chen Zhishang (Beijing Publishing House, 2005), which made a preliminary exploration of the normative construction of anthropological disciplines. The book makes a systematic and meticulous exposition of the research objects of anthropology, the relationship between anthropology and anthropology, and the relationship between anthropology and philosophy, and makes a more appropriate positioning of anthropology: "Anthropology is an emerging comprehensive basic discipline that is differentiated from philosophy, but still mainly based on philosophical thinking, spanning many disciplines. The book explores and defines some basic issues in the construction of anthropological disciplines, provides important reference coordinates for the academic community to carry out anthropological research, and promotes the further development of anthropological disciplines.
Xia Zhentao opened up a new path of anthropological research with a unique academic perspective and promoted the deepening of anthropological research. In Xia Zhentao's view, whether it is the study of practice or the study of cognition, it is inseparable from human participation, so that he unifies epistemology, practical theory and anthropology. Observing people from the perspective of epistemology and pragmatism is a significant feature of his study. On this basis, he established the research principles of practical materialism and the research method of grasping the essence with "relationship", opened up a new way to lead anthropological research through practice and relationship, and promoted the further development of mainland anthropological research.
After entering the 21st century, Xia Zhentao published a new book of anthropology, "What is Man" (Commercial Press, 2000), which established the basic definition of "human" from the unique perspective of anthropology. How to establish the definition of "person" in the perspective of anthropology is the premise and basis for theoretical issues related to the research system and methods of humanities. The book first raises the question of "why does man exist on earth" in general, and then answers the question of what kind of existence man is from four aspects: "man is directly a natural being", "man is essentially a social being", "man is a conscious being", and "man is a living being". Xia Zhentao emphasized that man is the unity of various regulations, and the most fundamental thing in examining the essence of man is to comprehensively examine how man creates his various states of existence and prescriptiveness through human activities, that is, the perceptual activities of practice, and how to achieve his own evolutionary development. This is his description of the characteristics of "man" from the perspective of anthropology, which clarifies the inherent transcendence and self-subjectivity unique to man, adheres to the historical dialectic of Marxism, and is the one-sided negation of mechanical materialism's "only seeing things but not seeing people". This research result is of fundamental significance for the theoretical research of contemporary Chinese Marxist anthropology.
Ten years later, Xia Zhentao's other anthropological monograph, "People: Relations, Activity Development" (Henan People's Publishing House, 2011 edition), based on Marx's basic theoretical views on real people, clarified the understanding of Marxist philosophy from the dialectical synthesis of relations, activities and development, providing a basic methodological framework for further deepening anthropological research. He expressed the core view in the book: Marx's materialist view of history is not to see things and not see people, on the contrary, it is based on the premise and starting point of real people. The real man is the existence of a relation, which is expressed through human activity, and it is in the dynamic development of relations and activities that man realizes his own development. Therefore, in order to make a holistic and specific investigation of real people, it is necessary to conduct in-depth study of people from the internal links of relations, activities, and development. Xia Zhentao's introduction of the dimension of "relationship domain" in anthropological research is of great pioneering significance for improving the philosophical realm of anthropological research.
Open up important areas of anthropological research and build a systematic anthropological ideological system
As one of the representative figures of Marxist anthropology research in the mainland, Xia Zhentao put forward quite insightful views on many important issues. He adheres to the materialist position of practice, starts from the unique perspective of the relationship domain, comprehensively explains Marxist anthropological theory, systematically answers a series of questions such as "where do people come from", "what are people", "where do people go", etc., builds a relatively complete theoretical system of anthropology, and provides a philosophical theoretical basis for us to understand and guide people's practice.
First, Xia Zhentao traced the origin of man to the source and established the primary premise of the whole human science research system. The question of man's origin is the first chapter in the study of man, and it is a fundamental question related to the construction of the theory of whole human science. However, for a long time, a major shortcoming in the study of continental anthropology is that not enough attention has been paid to the study of the origin of man. Xia Zhentao regards the investigation of the origin of man as the primary task of anthropological research, which not only makes up for the lack of "where do people come from" in the field of mainland anthropology research, but also helps to overcome certain erroneous tendencies in anthropological research.
There are two different views on the origin of man: one is the teleological explanation, that is, the belief that man appeared according to a special intention or purpose; the opposite is the evolutionary explanation, which holds that man is a product of evolution in nature and is subordinate to the natural laws of biological evolution. Xia Zhentao first criticized the absurd logic of teleology, but also pointed out that Darwin's theory of natural evolution laid a scientific foundation for understanding the origin of man, but it was not enough to understand the origin of man as the result of natural evolution. Because the philosophical inquiry into the origin of man is different from the empirical understanding of the origin of man acquired by other disciplines. In order to truly solve the problem of human origin, it is necessary to combine philosophical research with the results of natural science research and make new explorations from the materialist viewpoint of Marxist practice. In Xia Zhentao's view, there are two factors at play in the origin and emergence of man, namely, the factors of natural evolution and the factors of social labor. They are interdependent, mutually restrictive, and coordinated, and together they promote the transformation from ape to man. In the process of the action of these two factors, there is a dual relationship, namely natural and social relations, and "man is the product of the staggered unfolding of this double relationship". He further pointed out that "with regard to the origin of man, we can reduce it to the fact that the natural laws of biological evolution function on the special basis of labour." This exposition completely and comprehensively reveals the problem of the origin of man, and provides a theoretical tool and methodological basis for scientific understanding of "man".
Second, Xia Zhentao's exploration of the essence of man has opened up a new perspective on anthropological research. Previous research has always tended to understand the essence of man as an objectively determined existence, and has tried to seek an absolutely true theory of the nature of man, which inevitably leads to absolutism and arbitrariness. In contrast, Xia Zhentao's understanding of the nature of man is no longer limited to obtaining a complete closed definition, but advocates that the existence and development of man is infinitely open and unfinishable. In his book What Is Man, he proposed: "Man is an unfinished being, always in constant self-shaping and self-creation. "Xia Zhentao's revelation of the open and unrestricted characteristics of human nature breaks the shackles of the closed thinking methods that have a prescriptive and definable nature of human nature in the traditional sense, and provides us with a new dynamic way of thinking for anthropological research."
When analyzing the essence of human beings, Xia Zhentao bases himself on "realistic people" and takes the existence of "real people" as the starting point for analysis. He believes that "realistic people" are fundamentally people engaged in activities, and practice is the fundamental way of existence of people, and only by starting from practice can we grasp the essence of people. At the same time, when examining the process of the formation of the essence of man, he adhered to Marx's view that "man is the sum of all social relations" and made a specific explanation of the connotation of the word "sum". Xia Zhentao pointed out that "sum" does not refer to the simple mechanical sum of all social relations, but to "the overall effect and overall effect caused by the joint action of all social relations on people in social relations." That is to say, man is not only the creator of social relations, but also the bearer of social relations. The specific social relations in which people are located determine their social status, and at the same time, their social status will have an "overall effect" on people in social relations, thus affecting the generation of human essence. In this way, Xia Zhentao unified the practice of man, the social relations of man, and the essence of man. In his view, to understand the essence of man, it can only be explored through man's practical activities and the social relations he exhibits. Thus he does not see the essence of man as something eternal and unchanging, but as generative, uncertain, and constantly changing with the development of social relations. From this he concluded that "man is an unfinished existence", further deepening his understanding of the nature of man.
What Is Man?
"Xia Zhen Tao Anthology"
Third, Xia Zhentao's research on the existence and mode of existence of human beings has laid the methodological foundation for anthropological research. In his view, the real person is essentially the existence of relationships, and "relationships" constitute the general methodology of Xia Zhentao's anthropological research. He advocated the use of "relational" thinking to understand and grasp the relationship between real people and the world, and pointed out that this "relationship" is not a simple static coexistence relationship, but a dynamic and open relationship. Starting from the "relationship" thinking, Xia Zhentao based on practice and development, deeply explored the essence of the survival and development crisis facing human society, and provided useful reference for solving today's social development problems.
Xia Zhentao adhered to Marx's idea that "man is the existence of a relationship" and believed that relations and human existence are the same. He revealed the system of human relations from the perspective of systems theory, pointing out that it includes both the relationship between man and nature and the social relationship between man and man. Especially when discussing the relationship between man and nature, Xia Zhentao emphasized the importance of the proposition of "the unity of heaven and man" in Chinese philosophy. In his view, unlike animals that rely on their own organs to passively adapt to the external natural world, the relationship between humans and the external natural world is manifested as a "two-way adaptation that is realized in accordance with the human way and people-oriented", which Xia Zhentao describes as "the unity of heaven and man". It can be seen that the "unity of heaven and man" that Xia Zhentao talked about is essentially a practical relationship, which can only be achieved through practical activities. In order to achieve the "unity of heaven and man", human practical activities must follow "two scales", that is, "the scale of human subjects and the object scale of things or objects", otherwise it will destroy the harmonious relationship between man and nature and endanger the sustainable survival and development of mankind. From this, he further analyzed the crisis of survival and development facing mankind, "Now people are paying attention to and talking about the so-called crisis of human survival and development. If we admit that such a crisis exists, then it is in fact a crisis of relations, and this crisis of relations is mostly caused by the irrational activities of human beings themselves. Originally, man's relationship is 'for me', and man's activity is to realize the 'for me' nature of man's relationship, but if man's activity is unreasonable, it will also lead to the alienity of the relationship with man, so that a relationship crisis will endanger man's survival and development." Xia Zhentao's use of systematic and relational thinking to view the relationship between man and nature is of great enlightenment significance for understanding and solving the ecological crisis and development crisis facing mankind today, and for building an ecological community with harmonious development between man and nature.
Fourth, Xia Zhentao introduced the category of "value" into anthropological research, expanding the field and vision of anthropological research. In general anthropological research, the thinking of human problems mainly revolves around human nature, human nature, ability, personality, needs and other issues, while Xia Zhentao regards the value of human beings and the practical problems of human beings as more important. In his view, the thinking and answering of various human problems must be related to practice, value and meaning, and the study of anthropological value theory is actually a study of practical philosophy.
The term "value" was originally a term in the field of economics, and Xia Zhentao took the lead in studying the category of "human value" in a philosophical sense. In his view, value is a relational category that reflects the utility of the object to the subject. However, the value of human beings is different from the value of things, and compared with the one-way nature of the value of things, the value of human beings is multi-directional. Each person possesses in this relationship the value that others provide for him, but also constitutes a value to the production and life of others. In this way, he divided human value into two levels, namely self-worth and social value, and unified the two. In addition, in the understanding of human values, Xia Zhentao adheres to the materialist point of view of practice. He believes that "the value of man belongs to the essential aspect of man and can only be reflected in social relations in social production (including material and spiritual production), interaction and exchange activities." What kind of person he is determines what kind of value he has. Since the essence of man lies in labor and practice, and the essence of man is formed in the process of labor, the reason why man has value is also due to labor. It can be said that labor is the source of human value, and human value can only arise and exist in human labor. The magnitude of man's value lies in the magnitude of the value that man creates in his labor. "The value of human beings lies in creating value", which is the essence of human value. Xia Zhentao's in-depth study of the subjectivity of man and man, and his innovative understanding of the value of man, laid the foundation for the rise and prosperity of value theory research later.
Fifth, Xia Zhentao's research on the issue of human development has promoted the continuous deepening of anthropological research. In Xia Zhentao's view, the study of human problems is ultimately to solve the problem of human development. In fact, the study of the origin of man, the nature of man, the way of human existence, etc., are all the development of the theme of human development at different levels. Promoting and realizing the all-round development of human beings is not only a major theoretical issue, but also an urgent practical issue.
Xia Zhentao believes that human development is not a change in the biological sense, but is linked to the evolutionary development of social culture and social civilization, and has cultural connotations and cultural characteristics. He called this development "a movement in which the culture and essential forces of mankind are presented and manifest in the course of history in the course of history in which the inheritance and developmentality are unified." Different from the natural evolution of animals, human development is a new type of "cultural evolution", which is cumulative and transitional, so that people can continuously accumulate and transcend in historical development and obtain universal development. Of course, the universal development of man is not absolute, not without any restrictions. Xia Zhentao put forward requirements for human development from the level of ethics and morality: "We should cultivate universal benevolence and form positive virtues on the basis of reason. "Only by unifying reason, benevolence and virtue can people achieve sustainable development. Xia Zhentao's exploration of the law of human development not only makes his anthropological ideological system more complete, but also has a strong practical guiding significance for today's correct understanding of the crisis facing contemporary mankind, the path to lift the crisis, and the free and all-round development of man.
Committed to the contemporary interpretation of anthropology, enriching the development of Marxist anthropology
In Xia Zhentao's view, philosophy, as the study of wisdom, especially as the "wisdom of the present world", must pay attention to the great relationship between man and the world from the perspective of the source of its occurrence and development and the function and value of its existence. "The great relationship between man and the world is not only the general topic that philosophy should pay attention to and study, but also the general frame of reference for philosophical thinking and solving problems in different fields." Proceeding from the great relationship between man and the world, Xia Zhentao made a systematic interpretation of Marxist philosophy from the perspective of anthropology, further enriching Marxist philosophical anthropological thought.
Based on Marx's basic theoretical view of the real man, Xia Zhentao clarified the view of practical materialism of man from the perspective of anthropology: man is a practical being. In his view, in order to truly understand the existence of real people, we must change the method of observing and studying people, that is, we cannot understand them in an isolated and static way of thinking, and we can only study people "as people who act in history", that is, to study people from the aspects of human perceptual activities and practices. Man's perceptual activity, that is, practice, is the most fundamental and realistic way for man to deal with his great relationship with the real world. Therefore, to study man from the perspective of man's perceptual activity and practice, it is also necessary to observe and understand man from the historical and open unfolding of the great relationship between man and the world. As a kind of unspecified and unfinished existence, man is not satisfied with the prescriptiveness that already exists, does not stay in the way it has become, but strives to pursue new prescriptiveness and develop his own identity and essence more comprehensively in the conscious self-satisfied activity of opening up the relationship with the world. Thus man is always in the process of unfinished and striving to complete himself, in the movement of constant reproduction and re-creation of himself. This is the root of the subjective, dynamic, creative nature of man's purposeful practice.
In January 1988, Xia Zhentao (third from left) participated in the defense of Ouyang Kang's doctoral dissertation. Profile picture
Xia Zhentao made a more systematic interpretation of Marxist philosophy from the perspective of anthropology, and put forward many views with high theoretical value. He believes that philosophy itself is the highest theoretical expression of the great relationship between man and the world, and the main function of philosophy is to guide people to be good at handling and controlling their great relationship with the real world as a whole. In essence, the relationship between man and the world is a relationship of man, and through his own activities he builds a world of man who is centered on man and conforms to his purpose. According to the meaning of this great relationship as a human being, it should be carried out harmoniously and harmoniously under the principle of conducive to the sustained survival and all-round development of human beings, in accordance with the scale of the unity of truth, goodness and beauty. However, in the process of unfolding the relationship between reality, due to the individuality, particularity and historicity of the needs and essential forces of the subject, people will have an anti-subjectivity effect when dealing with their relations with the world, thus causing disharmony and disharmony in the relationship between people and the world, and then triggering some global problems and endangering the sustainable survival and development of mankind. To this end, philosophy should pay attention to the great relationship between man and the world, and in modern times, it is particularly necessary to have a philosophical view of great activity, under the guidance of a non-materialized and materialistic dialectical world view, and to explore the path of harmonious and coordinated development of the great relationship between man and the world on the whole and from the scale of the unity of truth, goodness and beauty.
Anthropological research is the premise of Xia Zhentao's entire philosophical research and occupies an important position in his philosophical thought. As he expressed in "Sauvignon Blanc Wind and Rain": "Heaven has feelings, the earth has feelings, I hope that the human feelings are stronger, and the harmony of heaven and earth is." Xia Zhentao adheres to the materialist position of practice, starts from the relationship, and highly summarizes the core and essence of Marxist anthropological theory. He conducted in-depth research on contemporary anthropology from a unique philosophical perspective, and formed his own more systematic system of anthropological thought. He put forward a series of groundbreaking views, leading and promoting the in-depth development of Marxist anthropological research. Xia Zhentao's humanistic thought is an academic peak, inspiring future generations to bravely climb and continue to move forward.
(The author is an honorary first-class professor of Chinese Min University, a member of the Faculty of Philosophy and secretary general of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Social Science Committee of the Ministry of Education; and a lecturer of the Central Socialist College)
Edit: Sai Yin