Fang Xudong: Mou Zongsan is a mountain, but it is not insurmountable

【Editor's Note】

Not long ago, an article titled "These people can represent the academic community is the 'misfortune' of national academia" was widely circulated in the WeChat circle of friends. The author of the article, Mou Zongsan (1909-1995), a native of Qixia, Shandong, whose ancestral home was Hubei Gong'an, was hailed as the most "original" "wise" philosopher in modern China, and was one of the important representative figures of modern Neo-Confucianism.

The article has many negative evaluations of Hu Shi, Feng Youlan, Liang Shuming, and other representative figures in the history of modern Chinese thought and scholarship, such as saying that Hu Shi "does not know anything about Chinese philosophy", "when examining Zen Buddhism, he also blindly examines Zen Buddhism, does not know the internal problems of Zen Buddhism, and only does some peripheral things"; calls Feng Youlan's "History of Chinese Philosophy" a "pus-pustular philosophy", and Feng Youlan "has not been exposed to the core issues of philosophy in the development of Chinese philosophy in all the dynasties, let alone any valuable discussion"; and called Liang Shuming's famous work "Pustule Philosophy", and Feng Youlan "has not been exposed to the core issues of philosophy in the development of Chinese philosophy at all, let alone any valuable discussion"; and liang Shuming's famous work "History of Chinese Philosophy" In the Cultures of the East and the West and Their Philosophy, "the new terms created are rootless, and the types of cultures mentioned are too simple."

Most of the modern intellectual and academic figures who have suffered serious negative evaluations have entered today's public domain and are well known to ordinary lovers of literature and history. So, are their academic achievements really as bad as Mu Zongsan's "cool comments"? With relevant questions, the surging news (www.thepaper.cn) reporter visited Mr. Fang Xudong, a professor in the Department of Philosophy of East China Normal University, and asked him to explain the relevant questions.

Professor Fang Xudong, a native of Huaining, Anhui Province, holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Peking University, with his research interests in Chinese philosophy (especially in the direction of Song Ming's science) and moral philosophy (especially in the Confucian tradition). His recent books are Nine Theses of Science (The Commercial Press, 2016) and The Principle of Original Life (East China Normal University Press, 2015).

Mou Zongsan Infographic

The Paper: Hello Teacher Fang, a recent article in the WeChat circle of friends in the transmission of Mou Zongsan, entitled "These people can represent the academic community is the 'misfortune' of national academia." You are an expert in the history of Chinese philosophy, and we would like to hear your opinion.

Fang Xudong: The article you mentioned is actually an excerpt from a lecture given by Mou Zongsan in 1990. Now this title was added by the editor. Such a topic cannot but be said to be eye-catching. Of course, from the perspective of network communication, I am afraid that only with such a title, the click rate can go up. If we copy the academic title of the original text, "Objective Understanding and the Reconstruction of Chinese Culture", I doubt it will be as "fire" as it is now. As the saying goes: the layman looks lively. The big names in the academic community will naturally attract a bunch of "melon-eating masses" to watch.

"It is difficult to learn": Whether you can make real knowledge depends on whether you are the material

The Paper: This post is suspected of being a "headline party". However, Mou Zongsan did name many people in it, including Hu Shi, Feng Youlan, Liang Shuming, Ma Yifu, xiong Shili, all of whom are well-known figures in modern academic history. As a professional, can you analyze and analyze for our ordinary readers, is Mou Zongsan's "cool comment" justified?

Fang Xudong: (Laughs) This is a pit. As you may know, there is a so-called "MouMen" in the Chinese philosophical circles, Mou Zongsan has many disciples in Hong Kong and Taiwan, especially in Taiwan, and there are many private disciples in the mainland, like some of my contemporaries, it is Mou Zongsan's books that introduce them to the door of Chinese philosophy. They have great respect for Mou, and some even go so far as to worship gods. Criticizing Mou Zongsan, in a way, is like "poking a honeycomb".

Since you found me, it is better to be respectful than to obey, and it just so happens that I have a lot of places involved in Mou Zongsan in my research, and it is not impossible to take this opportunity to talk about some feelings. If someone in the back shoots a brick and causes a discussion, that's exactly what you can't ask for. I would like to say that these remarks of Mou Zongsan make me think of four words, that is, "it is difficult to learn for the sake of learning."

The Paper: If I remember correctly, it seems that Mou Zongsan has an article called "It is not easy to be a person, it is difficult to learn, does your statement have anything to do with that article?

Fang Xudong: You are right, I did use the allusion to Mou Zongsan's article. I think that in order to understand Mou Zongsan's lecture, it is best to find that article and read it together. That article was written earlier and published in the journal Regeneration in 1968. The eight words "it is not easy to be a person, it is difficult to learn for the truth" are actually a mantra of Xiong Shili, the third teacher of Mou Zong. According to Mou Zongsan's understanding, "it is difficult to learn from reality", and the difficulty lies in the fact that it is not easy for a person to express the most core place and the most essential place in his life in learning. Mou Zongsan said: "It is not easy for a person to sincerely learn from the core of his life and absorb knowledge, and it is very difficult to discover this core. Assuming that this core is not discovered, we can also say that this person is not a real person in terms of learning; assuming that your knowledge does not fall in the place of your core, we can also say that you are a person who has no true knowledge. ”

The 1990 lecture continued to implement this meaning, and the statement changed slightly. True learning falls on the core of one's own life, becoming: a person must have a corresponding life disposition towards the knowledge he teaches. Mou Zongsan emphasized the word "corresponding" in that speech. What does he mean by "corresponding"? It is that learning coincides with the disposition of life, that is, a tacit understanding of the mind that is not without mystery.

This is clear from his comments on Zhou Lianxi (Zhou Dunyi, 1017-1073). He said: "Zhou Lianxi is the ancestor of Song Ming's science, and his concept is actually very simple, only a few sentences can explain the zhongyong yi very clearly, and do not lose the Confucian moment, which is completely dependent on corresponding understanding, not in the general knowledge of erudition. Therefore, Huang Lizhou's "Song Yuanxue Case" quotes Wu Caolu's praise for Zhou Lianxi as: 'Tacit understanding of Daomiao', 'tacit understanding of Daomiao' is the so-called 'corresponding', and the metaphysics of moderation is very thorough. (Huang Lizhou or Huang Zongxi, 1610-1695.) Wu Caolu is a beginner. --Editor's note)

The Paper: It turns out that Mou Zongsan's meaning of "it is difficult to learn for practical reasons" is what he meant. I feel that this is not to say that the knowledge itself is not easy, but that the core of the researcher's life or disposition is not easy to match the knowledge he wants to study.

Fang Xudong: Yes, to put it in layman's terms, Mou Zongsan means that whether you can make real knowledge depends on whether you are that piece of material. Moreover, even if you are that piece of material, but you don't know it yourself, you can't do it. Only when you know which piece of material you are, and then consciously work hard.

The Paper: Doing this kind of study, it feels quite mysterious to be talked about by Mou Zongsan like this. This must be the kind of talent of the world, no wonder he said, "It is difficult to learn."

Fang Xudong: Yes, not only Hu Shi and Feng Youlan, he felt that he was not qualified, but even Liang Shuming, Ma Yifu, who he respected as a gentleman, and even his teacher Xiong Shili, he felt that he was almost there. There is a saying in the speech: "Like Mr. Liang, Mr. Ma, Mr. Xiong, etc., they cannot fully correspond to the former sages, let alone others." ”

The Paper: At this point, I have a deeper understanding of "it is difficult to learn". Earlier you said that Mou Zongsan's remarks remind you of the four words "it is difficult to learn for the sake of learning", do you agree with Mou Zongsan's view of learning, or does it have other meanings?

Fang Xudong: When I think of these four words, it is not because I agree with Mou Zongsan's view of learning, but because Mou Zongsan realized the truth that "it is difficult to learn" from the scholars of his predecessors, and today I have the same feeling from Mou Zongsan.

"Objective understanding": the text is clear, can be explained, not necessarily called understanding; there must be a corresponding life disposition

The Paper: This is a bit of a "treat other person's body in the way of others". How to say it specifically?

Fang Xudong: The "study of life" taught by Mou Zongsan is actually closer to the "study of body and mind" spoken of by traditional Confucians, the Spirital Exercise in English. "Doing learning" for Mou Zongsan is equivalent to "lecturing" for Song Ming theorists, and "monasticism" for religious scholars. This kind of learning, and the knowledge usually spoken of for the purpose of pursuing objective knowledge, is originally a running car on two roads, the problem is that Mou Zongsan likes to use the word "objective" to describe this kind of learning he talks about, and if he is not careful, it is easy to be taken away by him.

Like his 1990 lecture, the title was marked by the words "objective understanding." Throughout this lecture, the importance of "learning" was emphasized. At the beginning, he asked the audience a question:

"After the fall of the Ming Dynasty in China, the tradition of learning was broken, and the so-called learning was extinguished, until the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, the great high-level intellectuals in society generally had a true disposition, and in a certain way, they also had true wisdom and true ambition. But why can't they all be successful? What is the crux of this? ”

Then he replied: "The result of my thinking, I found that the crux of the problem is that they all lack something in their lives, and that kind of thing is the 'learning' that Confucius called 'learning and learning from time to time'." The true disposition, true wisdom, and true ambition in life can only be supported by the enrichment of 'learning', and the old gentlemen of that generation just lack sufficient education. ”

These two passages are not seen in the excerpt you circulated on the Internet ("These people can represent the 'misfortune' of academia as national scholarship"), and you can also know that the excerpt version is unreliable. So I don't bother to bring them all out here, only in this way can I fully understand Mou Zongsan's views and make a fair comment on him.

When it comes to academic cultivation, what comes to mind is nothing more than academic skills and cultivation. Judging from Mou Zongsan's explanation of "learning" below, his statement is also common. He said that to learn is to have an "objective understanding" of the problem, to have correct knowledge, not to misunderstand, and not to be general.

In order to illustrate what is general, he also gives a special example of Liu Zongzhou (蕺山, 1578-1645), a great Confucian in the late Ming Dynasty. When the country was in trouble, Liu Zongzhou played a song to the Chongzhen Emperor: "Your Majesty's heart is at peace, then the world is at peace." In this regard, Mou Zongsan commented: When the country is in trouble and it is necessary to come up with methods, "knowledge" and "learning" are indispensable elements, and it is not enough to talk about the "University" at this time to cultivate oneself and then govern the country and the world. Mou Zongsan believes that the reason why Liu Fengshan said such a general and unrealistic statement was because he did not have an objective understanding of politics. Mou Zongsan further pointed out that handling political and social issues requires learning, and carrying forward traditional Chinese wisdom also requires objective learning.

However, due to a certain prejudice of Mou Zongsan, he was unable to adhere to this objective view of learning to the end, which was evident when he said that "after the fall of China from the Ming Dynasty, the tradition of learning has been broken, and the so-called learning has been lost." Obviously, the so-called Qianjia scholarship is completely outside the scope of the knowledge taught by Mou Zongsan. The learning that Mou Zongsan understood was nothing more than the Taoist tradition he believed in. In the late 1970s, Mou Zongsan gave a series of lectures on Chinese philosophy, which was published in 1983 as "Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy", in which he repeatedly stated that Chinese philosophy, traditional Chinese learning, ended after the Ming Dynasty. This kind of "final conclusion of learning" has not been given up throughout his life, and the 1990 lecture is still this thesis, he said: "The ancient Chinese people's lectures have a scale and a law, and this law track dissipated after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty could not take over, and the Republic of China has been farther away." ”

However, if "learning" is to make an objective understanding of the problem, you cannot say that Gu Yanwu (1613-1682) descended, and none of the Qing generation of scholars had a culture. Three hundred years of academic history is not so easy to erase.

The Paper: So how does Mou Zongsan understand "objective understanding"?

Fang Xudong: Mou Zongsan's definition is as follows: "The so-called 'objective understanding', in detail, for example, reading pre-Qin Confucianism, we should face up to how it was formed. This kind of understanding of philosophical doctrine is difficult, and it is necessary to understand 'corresponding', and 'corresponding' does not depend only on the familiar reading of the text, nor on the mere 'comprehension'. The text is clear and can be explained, which is not necessarily called understanding. There must be a corresponding disposition of life, and if not, it is best to talk about literature, history, science, etc. ”

He also said: "Not only must we have a corresponding understanding of the pre-Qin families, but also have a corresponding understanding of the classics of the two Han Dynasties, the metaphysics of Wei and Jin, and the Buddhism of Sui and Tang Dynasties." Whether you have that kind of understanding, whether it is suitable for that kind of knowledge, this must be self-knowledge. 'Self-knowledge' is also a kind of 'objective understanding', and if you can't talk about it, don't talk about it, don't talk about it, talk about it indiscriminately. ”

You see, when he talks about "objective understanding," he first talks about "For example, if you read pre-Qin Confucianism, you should face up to how it was formed, and what are the basic principles in it?" This would have been good, but then, the conversation suddenly turned, and it turned to the "corresponding life disposition". Finally, "'Self-knowledge (whether one has that kind of corresponding understanding, suitable for that kind of knowledge)' is also a kind of 'objective understanding'", which has completely departed from the problem of "objective understanding" discussed at the beginning.

Mou Zong's three poles say that "understanding philosophical principles" is difficult, emphasizing that there is no way to do anything other than reading texts and sentences. And this kind of kung fu is simply "innate divine skill" because it is related to your life disposition. What kind of life disposition a person has, this is brought about by nature, and the acquired man is powerless. Whether you can preach theory or not, whether you can talk about Confucianism, is decided by nature, and no matter how hard you try the day after tomorrow, it will be in vain.

This understanding of "objective understanding" not only refreshes our understanding of the word "objective", but also changes our usual perception of the word "understanding". Logically, even if we can agree that "the text is clear and can be explained, it is not necessarily called understanding", we cannot deduce the conclusion that "if we do not understand the text, we can still understand". You think, the text is clear, it cannot be called understanding, even the text is not clear, then understanding is even more impossible to talk about.

It is entirely conceivable that in the face of an ancient text, even if you are fluent and can explain, Mou Zongsan will still say that you do not correspond and do not understand. In fact, such assertions are all over The Three Books of Mou Zong, for example, when he says that "Wang Bi's annotations on the I Ching are not corresponding at all"; and that Feng Youlan explains Zhu Zi in terms of the New Realism of the West, "which of course is not corresponding." On the other hand, because he is confident in his own disposition in life, even if he is not an expert in that field, Mou Zongsan is confident that he can understand, like Buddhism, like Kant's philosophy.

In short, Mou Zongsan actually pays more attention to the corresponding and uncorruptive disposition of life, rather than "learning". Although his entire lecture revolves around "learning", it is actually "the meaning of drunkenness is not wine". My feelings also come from this: People like Mou Zongsan, whose talent is not high, who cannot be said to have no merit in reading, who also know the importance of "learning" and emphasize "objective understanding", however, in the end, they believe in the corresponding set of things in the disposition of life, which is really sad. His example seems to prove once again that "it is difficult to learn" is true.

"There is nothing else to do in learning, just two, one is literature work, the other is understanding"

The Paper: Now I understand what you meant when you said at the beginning, "It's hard to learn." But I still have a question, Mou Zongsan wrote so many books on Chinese philosophy, Confucianism and Taoism are all involved, there are four volumes of Huanghuang huanghuang in song and ming science alone, and he also independently translated the three major criticisms of Kant. The objective understanding I am talking about is not the meaning of "corresponding to the disposition of life" used by Mou Zongsan, but refers to the aspects of literature kung fu and understanding.

Fang Xudong: This is a good question. Limited by my academic strength, I was unable to make a comprehensive argument, but only made a comment on my own research and a little.

First of all, I would like to say that although Mou Zongsan spoke of "the correspondence of the disposition of life" in his speech, he relied on documentary efforts and deep thinking in the specific study of the history of philosophy. He has written so many books, and the reason why people still read them today is not because of how great his life temperament is, but because he has really worked hard in the literature, and his understanding is deep enough to inspire people. So, on this issue, we have to look at what he actually does, not what he says.

Once upon a time, when I read Mou Zongsan's Nineteen Lectures on Chinese Philosophy, I was very impressed by a passage in it, which said: "Ordinary people are not smart enough, but they have not worked hard enough on literature. And this set of work is completely pedantic work, can not be anxious, to take it slowly, such as talking about Zhu Zi's neutralization problem, all the minimum information about the neutralization problem must be understood step by step. This kind of work must be done, so that it can be regarded as academic and can show an objective position. "You see, when he said these things, he was very sincere, without any ambiguity.

He tells you that there is nothing else to do in learning, just two, one is literature work, and the other is understanding. There is no question of the disposition of life at all. In the final analysis, learning can not be fake, you say how your life disposition is corresponding, but you do not read widely, you should see the material you did not see, people find a piece of material that you did not see, what else do you have to say? For the ancients or for western learning, you understand it correctly, it is not up to you to decide, everyone still has a scale in their hearts, in any case, if you have not even passed the basic sentences, no matter how strong you argue, it is useless.

In this case, the people who defend Mou Zongsan usually sacrifice their master's magic weapon, that is, the general text does not mean understanding, and even if Mr. Mou does not understand individual texts, it does not prevent his understanding from being the most reasonable, because Mr. Mou has "echoes of existence", which is called "yiyi does not follow the language".

Mou Zongsan is a mountain, but it is not insurmountable.

In fact, this kind of talk can only scare those who have no brains. Then again, all fans, no matter whose fans, originally have no brains, and if they really have brains, they will not "powder" people. Mou Zongsan is not a god, and it is normal for him to have neglected to understand or misunderstand in his research. Let me give you a few examples to illustrate.

The first example is Mou Zongsan's criticism of Ma Yifu's use of "righteousness" to refer to Buddhism. In the paragraph commenting on Ma Yifu, Mou Zongsan said that Ma Yifusheng created a new word "righteousness" to call Buddhism, and he questioned: "I know that the ancients had the so-called 'science of righteousness', Song Ming had 'science of science', and Mr. Ma wanted to use 'righteousness' to call Buddhism, I don't know what it is based on? Confucianism talks about 'sexual theory', Taoism talks about 'xuanli', 'righteousness' means that everyone has it, Confucianism has Confucian righteousness, Taoism has Taoist righteousness, how can we use 'righteousness' to call Buddhism? ”

Mou Zongsan's questioning exposed his ignorance of Buddhism. In fact, "righteousness" is not a new word created by Ma Yifu at all, but has always been the name of Buddhist teachings, especially pranayama theory, as early as the Jin Dynasty's "Zhao", which said that in the third year of the later Qin Dynasty (401 AD), the King of Qin "Jiyi Xue Shamen more than 500 people in the YaoyaoGuan" and the high monk Kumarosh "Participated in the Fang and so on". Open the "Hongming Collection" and "Biography of a High Monk", and the word "righteousness" can be seen everywhere. In addition, historical books such as the Book of Wei, the Book of Chen, and the Old Book of Tang are also included. This shows that "righteousness" is not a strange term. Mou Zongsan did not understand this, and could only say that he was still lacking in buddhist common sense.

The second example is Mou Zongsan's criticism of Zhu Zi's explanation of Mencius's "dedication to intellectuality.". Mou Zongsan severely criticized Zhu Zi's commentary on Mencius's "Mind Body and Sexual Body" and "The Theory of Yuanshan" and other works, arguing that Zhu Zi's understanding was "not corresponding" to Mencius's original meaning and "too much", saying that Zhu Zi could not grasp Mencius's original meaning, "so his notes were completely reversed".

However, the real situation is that Mou Zongsan himself misunderstood Zhu Zi. Not only did Zhu Zi not interpret the "exhaustion" of "dedication" as "exhaustion of qualities" as he criticized, but also, Mu Zongsan thought that he had a correct understanding of "exhaustion", and Zhu Zi had actually spoken of it before him. These are all textual to contrast. For a specific argument, see humble essay "Dedication and Intellectuality: Zhu Zi's Interpretation of < Mencius> "Conscientious Knowledge" (published in the Journal of Northwest University, No. 5, 2012, included in humble book "Painting Aftermath: Classical Interpretation and Philosophical Research", Peking University Press, 2012), which interested readers can check it out.

The third example is Mou Zongsan's understanding and translation of the concept of "moral emotion" in Kant's moral philosophy. Since Mou Zongsan believed that Kant's philosophy was the best medium for recasting Chinese philosophy, he spent a lot of effort translating Kant's three major critiques. He thought he knew Kant better than the Kant experts of the West. But what about the real situation? First of all, Mou Zongsan did not understand German, and his translation of Kant was translated from English. So, what about his English? Honestly, not so much. This linguistic weakness inevitably creates many errors in his translation, some even very low-level.

For example, when he translated Kant's section on moral emotions in Die Metaphysik der Sitten, he revealed that he did not understand German and that English was not good enough. In a short passage in that section, Kant speaks of the so-called in der Sprache der Ärzte. Kant's original text was Ärzte, which the English translator translated as physicians. As a result, Mou Zongsan, who translated from the English translation, translated the physicians as "physicists." This shows that Mou Zongsan did not know that physician in English, in addition to "physicist", also means "doctor". It should be said that such errors are quite low-level.

The understanding and translation of key concepts such as "moral emotion" and "moral cognition" cannot be expected to be more precise. The original German text for "moral emotion" is moralische gefühl, translated as moral feeling in English. In Kant's view, moral emotions are subjective (German subjektiv), as opposed to moral perceptions (moralischer sinn) that are always related to specific objects. Moral knowledge provides knowledge (Erkenntnis) and is related to the theoretical dimension (theoretisch). In German, the difference between moralische gefühl and moral perception (moralischer sinn) is evident. Translated into English morning feeling and moral sense, it is not too confusing.

However, since Mou Zongsan was translated from English, he finally translated moral feeling into moral emotion, and moral sense as "moral feeling" ingenuity. What is "sensing"? Mou Zongsan interprets it as "perceptual bottom function", and correspondingly, "moral sensibility" is "the perceptual effect of morality, generally speaking as moral feeling, or more simply as moral sense" (see Mou Zongsan's translation: Kant's Moral Philosophy).

The reason why Mou Zongsan translated it in this way, I think, is probably because he only knows that sense has the meaning of "feeling" in English, and he does not know that in addition to that common meaning, there are also meanings such as "knowing", "judging", "understanding" and so on. To understand Kant's "moral understanding" as "moral sense", "moral feeling" or "moral sense", the "theoretical dimension" given by Kant is difficult to highlight, after all, the word "feeling" in Chinese is difficult to think of "theoretical dimension", and "sensibility" is rather relative to "intellectual". More seriously, if moralishe sinn is understood and translated as "moral sensation" or "moral sensibility", how can we again grasp what Kant called "moral emotion" as "the sensibility of freely chosen will"? In short, no matter how high your understanding or comprehension is, and you have no basic language skills, how can you ensure that your understanding and translation are correct? How can you be so confident: Kant experts may not understand Kant, but you "can see the original meaning of Kant"?

For a predecessor like Mou Zongsan, there is no need for us to blindly follow him like some of his students or admirers, and of course there is no need to scratch the itch like some delusional people. Mou Zongsan is a mountain, but it is not insurmountable. Only if you have worked harder than Mou Zongsan can you see his limitations and go further than him. It is difficult to learn, and it is only for it.