In 2007, Zhang Huaxia took a group photo with the statue of Hume in Edinburgh. Photo by Chen Xiaoping
The Philosophy of Natural Science (translated by Zhang Huaxia).
The Theory of Material Systems (by Zhang Huaxia).
Lecture on dialectics of nature (written by Zhang Huaxia).
In the field of natural dialectics, philosophy of science and philosophy of systems in China, Mr. Zhang Huaxia has made great achievements. He has a rigorous academic attitude, a noble scholarly character, as well as a broad academic sentiment and unremitting academic spirit. He once wrote in "My Philosophical Pursuit": "Life is endless, the search is not endless, all fame, status, stage achievement, are short-lived, only the continuous search for the truth itself is an eternal thing!" ”
Learn to look back
Zhang Huaxia was born in December 1932 in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, and his father Zhang Qi was the grandson of Zhang Jingxiu's nephew Zhang Jiamu. In 1950, he studied in the Department of Economics of Sun Yat-sen University, and after graduation, he went to the Political Teaching and Research Department of Huazhong Institute of Technology (now Huazhong University of Science and Technology) to teach the course "Modern Chinese History". In 1955, he was admitted to the postgraduate class of Fudan University under the supervision of Professor Koschev, a Soviet expert and head of the Department of Philosophy of Moscow University. In 1957, Zhang Huaxia graduated from the Department of Philosophy of Fudan University in Shanghai. After graduation, Zhang Huaxia returned to Huazhong Institute of Technology to teach again, and served as the director of the philosophy department. This is the first stage of Zhang Huaxia's philosophical career, mainly engaged in the teaching and research of philosophical principles and natural dialectics.
In the early 1960s, Professor Lin Wanhe of Chinese Min University organized the "Natural Dialectics Refresher Course". In 1962, Chinese University published A Brief Explanation of the Dialectics of Nature, which had a profound impact on Zhang Huaxia at that time. From 1962 to 1963, Zhang Huaxia attended a refresher course, and for a whole year, he "nibbled down" Engels's "Dialectics of Nature" sentence by sentence.
In addition to reading Engels's natural dialectics word by word, Zhang Huaxia realized that natural dialectics is mainly a theory about the form of material motion and its development mechanism, and with the help of professors He Lin and Miao Litian, Zhang Huaxia supplemented Hegel's "Logic" and "Small Logic", which laid a solid foundation for Zhang Huaxia to further study natural dialectics in the future.
Influenced and inspired by the "Brief Explanation of Natural Dialectics", in 1974, in order to meet the needs of workers, peasants, and soldiers, teachers, and especially old professors to study Engels's "Dialectics of Nature", Zhang Huaxia spent more than half a year compiling the book "Marx, Engels, lenin on natural dialectics". The content of the book is derived from the Complete Works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, and in the order of the catalogue of Engels's Dialectics of Nature, the classical expositions on other natural dialectics and philosophical problems of natural science that are not in the Dialectics of Nature are edited almost without omission.
In the 1970s, the Lectures on Natural Dialectics (Hubei People's Publishing House) written by Zhang Huaxia (signed by the Department of Natural Dialectics of Huazhong Institute of Technology) and the "Marx, Engels, lenin on natural dialectics" (Huazhong Institute of Technology Publishing House) were published, comprehensively summarizing Zhang Huaxia's evidence-based research on the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin.
Zhang Huaxia recalled that he learned in detail about the formation process of the Soviet philosophy teaching system in the 1930s and the Soviet philosophy teaching system in the 1950s, which was of great help to his systematic understanding of the development of the teaching system of Marxist philosophical principles.
In addition, at this stage, Zhang Huaxia also had a special interest in mathematics and physics, so he also did a lot of research on the methodology of mathematical philosophy, mathematical logic, physics, chemistry and the history of general science, and published many papers.
In October 1977, Zhang Huaxia returned to the Department of Philosophy of Sun Yat-sen University to teach, re-established the Department of Natural Dialectics and served as the director of the Department. In December of the same year, the National Science and Technology Planning Conference was held. Zhang Huaxia was specially invited by Guangyuan to attend the meeting as a representative of the department of natural dialectics of Sun Yat-sen University. During the meeting, the National Conference on The Planning of Natural Dialectics was also held at the same time. This meeting formulated the "Draft Outline of the Development Plan for Natural Dialectics from 1978 to 1985", which means that the state attaches more importance to the study and research of natural dialectics, which opens a new chapter for the development of the cause of natural dialectics and the establishment of disciplines.
Zhang Huaxia's philosophical career also entered the second stage. During this period, Zhang Huaxia refused all invitations or suggestions to hold administrative positions and devoted himself to philosophical research and teaching.
At this stage, Zhang Huaxia's main research directions were two: one was natural philosophy and systems philosophy; the other was the philosophy of science.
In the study of natural philosophy and systems philosophy, he uses systems ideas and systems concepts to construct new natural philosophies or systems of natural concepts. During this period, he did his best to collect existing systematic philosophical materials to the greatest extent possible, analyze and integrate them, and published major works such as "Material System Theory" (Zhejiang People's Publishing House) and "Modern Natural Philosophy and Philosophy of Science" (Sun Yat-sen University Press).
In addition, Zhang Huaxia also defined the concept of nature in 20th century science as the evolution of the self-organization level of the material system, studied the "material system", "system self-organization", "material hierarchy", "evolution of the universe" and other related contents, and established a new system of natural dialectics. Although in some details, Zhang Huaxia's exposition may be insufficient empirical material or speculative conception, in general, Zhang Huaxia believes that this theoretical structure is a big step forward from the natural dialectical system with the form of material motion and its transformation into the center.
In the study of philosophy of science, Zhang Huaxia divided it into three aspects: "scientific exploration", "scientific structure" and "scientific culture". Using the knowledge of mathematical logic and analytic philosophy that he had acquired in his first stage of self-cultivation, Zhang Huaxia quickly mastered the "philosophy of science of logical empiricism", "the philosophy of science of falsificationism" and "the philosophy of science of the historical school". In this regard, Zhang Huaxia translated two world-famous works by the founders of the philosophy of science in the 20th century, namely Hempel's Philosophy of Natural Science (Triptych Bookstore) and Carnap's Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (Sun Yat-sen University Press), for which he also wrote a monograph, Synthesis and Creation (Guangdong People's Publishing House).
From 1988 to 1990, Zhang Huaxia was a visiting researcher at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom, where he served as a senior researcher. In 1988, Zhang Huaxia, unaware that Zhang Xianglun and Guan Yuxin were also translating Mario Bunge's Scientific Materialism, also translated the book, and sent a letter to Bunge for the translation, asking him to write a preface to the translation.
Soon, Zhang Huaxia received the preface to the translation written by Bunge. However, at that time, the Shanghai Translation Publishing House had already published translations of Zhang Xianglun and Guan Yuxin. Therefore, Zhang Huaxia submitted the preface to the translation written by Bunge and his book review of Scientific Materialism to the Philosophical Studies for publication.
Zhang Huaxia recalls that in the preface, what impressed him most was one of the goals pursued by Bunge--to establish a precise, systematic, scientific, dynamic, systemic, realizational, evolutionary materialist ontology. To a certain extent, this provided new inspiration for Zhang Huaxia's philosophical research.
The study of systematic philosophy, natural philosophy, and philosophy of science made Zhang Huaxia deeply feel the importance of ontological philosophy that has been deeply rooted in the background. Thus, beginning in 1993, he returned to the study of ontological philosophy, epistemological philosophy, and philosophy of value. Zhang Huaxia also entered the third stage of his philosophical career.
In 1997, Zhang Huaxia completed the book "Reality and Process", which is subtitled "Exploration and Reflection on Ontological Philosophy", which is the first volume of philosophical principles that Zhang Huaxia planned to write. In the last paragraph of the book, he writes: "If the environmental conditions and my own health allow me to continue to study and write, and if I am inspired enough, I would like to introduce the second volume of philosophical principles, which is an exploration and reflection on epistemological philosophy, called the multiple view of truth." There may also be a third volume of philosophical principles, which is the exploration and reflection of the philosophy of value and man himself, called the pluralistic value theory. ”
Since then, Zhang Huaxia has successively authored books such as Modern Natural Philosophy and Philosophy of Science, Modern Science and the Ethical World: Exploration and Reflection on Moral Philosophy, System Concept and Philosophical Exploration: Construction and Criticism of a Systematistic Philosophical System, Moral Philosophy and Analysis of Economic Systems, Three Laws of System Philosophy, and Structure of Science: Exploration of The Philosophy of Science in Post-Logical Empiricism.
After retiring from Sun Yat-sen University, Zhang Huaxia still strives for the forefront of academic research, and has served as a visiting professor at the School of Public Administration of Science and Technology of South China Normal University, a professor at the Research Center for the Philosophy of Science and Technology of Shanxi University, a vice president of the Chinese Society for Systems Science, and a vice president of the Guangdong Natural Dialectics Research Association, contributing his life's energy to the development of Chinese natural dialectics.
On November 18, 2019, Zhang Huaxia passed away in Guangzhou at the age of 87.
Introduction to scholars
Mr. Zhang Huaxia was born in 1932. He graduated from the Department of Economics of Sun Yat-sen University and the Department of Philosophy of Fudan University in his early years, taught at Huazhong Institute of Technology (now Huazhong University of Science and Technology), taught at the Department of Philosophy of Sun Yat-sen University after the reform and opening up, and retired as a part-time professor of South China Normal University. His research interests include the philosophy of science and technology, the philosophy of science of complex systems, and the philosophy of ethics. In these fields, his works are equal and fruitful; especially in the first two fields, he can be called the leader and founder of Chinese academic circles.
Scholar evaluation
Zhang Huaxia is the most active member of the Professional Committee of philosophy of science, and his enthusiasm for scholarship makes the research atmosphere of the whole committee become vivid; Zhang Huaxia pursues systematization in academic research, and truly achieves comprehensive development of truth,seeking goodness and seeking beauty.
——Fan Dainian, former president of the Chinese Society for the Study of Natural Dialectics
Mr. Huaxia's main research interests are the philosophy of science and technology, the philosophy of complex systems science and the philosophy of ethics. In these fields, his works are equal and fruitful; especially in the first two fields, he can be called the leader and founder of Chinese academic circles. Mr. Huaxia is a wise, open-minded, thoughtful, creative, diligent and prolific philosopher, whose love of philosophy has come from the depths of his heart to make a living. For him, philosophical research is not just a means of survival, but more importantly, the way of survival. Because of this, in his lifetime, he never relaxed his research work, but became more and more effective and fruitful; only after his retirement (1996), he published as many as seven monographs, which made my descendants look forward to it and sigh.
——Chen Xiaoping, Director of the Institute of Philosophy, School of Public Administration, South China Normal University
Professor Zhang Huaxia is a famous philosopher of science in China, who is still researching in his 80s, doing real learning, and having fun! Mr. Li does real learning, and is willing to take the initiative to discuss, there is no age difference, only for the truth and pursuit.
——Wu Guolin, Director of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Philosophy and Science and Technology, South China University of Technology
Scholarly style
Modern science and technology and traditional Confucian ethics
Several Questions on the Philosophical Reflections of Science on Confucian Ethical Thought (Excerpt)
Text: Zhang Huaxia
Confucian View of Heaven and Man and Ecological Ethics
The Confucian cosmology and ethics of the unity of heaven and man have their backward side. It uses the "Heavenly Way" to explain humanity, believing that human morality is a product of imitation of nature. The courtesy of the king and the lord is to imitate the distinction between heaven and earth and the mountains; the difference between the outside and the inside of the husband and wife is to imitate the division of yin and yang; the legal punishment of human society is to imitate the thunder and anger of nature; and the morality of benevolence and righteousness is to imitate the grace of nurturing in nature. This is Confucius's "Zetian Saying": "Only heaven is too, only Yao is it." Dong Zhongshu, a great Confucian of the Han Dynasty, developed Zetian theory into "heaven and man induction" and "unity of heaven and man", that is, man is heaven, and heaven is man. "The flesh of man is benevolent and benevolent. The virtue of man is to transform heaven into righteousness. The likes and dislikes of man, the warmth of heaven. The joy and anger of man, the cold and heat of the day. Man is ordained to be transformed into four hours of heaven. This moral continuum of Heavenly Dao and Humanity leads people to study the Heavenly Dao only for human morality and even to serve the consolidation of feudal morality, which greatly hinders the study of the natural world that is not subject to people's will. The rise of modern science and the establishment of industrial society must criticize this Confucian view of heaven and man, leaving aside the second nature of nature (perceptual phenomena) and the third nature (goodness and beauty) to concentrate on the study of the first nature of nature, and develop a set of mechanical views of nature, transforming science and technology into productive forces, and finally into primary productive forces. This greatly increased people's material wealth and raised the welfare of human life by an order of magnitude compared with that of agricultural society.
But in the process, science and technology also unconsciously alienated and developed into what Fair Abend called "scientific hegemonism", thinking that science can determine everything, rule everything, and solve all problems, without regard to the material cycle of nature, material limitations, and ethical constraints. This scientific hegemonism is reflected in the relationship between man and nature or in the relationship between heaven and man, and there are two basic attitudes: (1) not acknowledging or actually not recognizing that "man is a part of nature" but emphasizing that "man is the master of nature"; not recognizing or actually not recognizing the harmonious and harmonious development of man and nature, but emphasizing the use of science and technology to conquer nature, rule nature, and make nature a slave of man. (2) Only the welfare of the human species is recognized, and the welfare of millions of species of life evolved on the earth is not recognized; only the value of human beings themselves is recognized, and the whole earth and even the whole natural world have their own intrinsic value that does not depend on human beings, and therefore there is no responsibility or obligation for the existence and development of the earth. Fundamentally, it is this anthropocentric conception of nature and the ethical thinking of human egoism that leads man to go further and further down the path of destroying and destroying nature, leading to the scarcity of resources, the depletion of energy, environmental pollution and the arrival of a global ecological crisis.
The emergence of ecological science and its related ecological ethics at the end of the 20th century comprehensively reflected on the concept of heaven and ethics in industrial society, and proposed a conceptual change that needs to be widely promoted in the 21st century. This is to recognize that nature is a whole and that man is only a part of nature. Man and nature are the relationship between the whole and the part, the parents and the children, the homeland and the inhabitants, and for the "Heavenly Father" and the "Mother earth", it is not to conquer it but to protect it. This is to recognize that the natural world and the entire biosphere have their own value, not only to safeguard the welfare of human beings, but also to safeguard the welfare of other species in the biosphere, because we share their common interests and are in the same boat. Therefore, the concept of benevolence should be extended to the natural environment, to the gene pool of the entire living world, and to the entire natural world. This is also not contradictory to the selfish gene mentioned in the previous section, and the egoistic gene produces altruism and fraternity.
In a sense, this new type of ecological ethics philosophy is not only consistent with the ancient Taoist "return to nature" in China, but also coincides with the Confucian concept of the unity of heaven and man. This is why the new science and technology and its ethical conclusions, which are discussed in the first section of this article, will re-criticize the critique of Confucian ethics in industrial society. The Confucian theory of the unity of heaven and man is fundamentally wrong in many of its specific expositions and in many aspects of its defense of feudal ethics, but its general view requires that we take heaven as a good teacher, take heaven as a loving mother, and cherish nature and imitate nature.
Confucius said, "Only the world is sincere in order to be able to fulfill its nature; if it can fulfill its nature, it can fulfill its human nature; if it can fulfill its human nature, it can fulfill the nature of things; if it can fulfill the nature of things, it can praise the cultivation of heaven and earth; and it can be related to heaven and earth." (The Book of Rites, The Middle Way) Here it is said that the Heavenly Dao and humanity are connected. If the cultivation of the heavens and the earth is interpreted as understanding, praising and assisting the endless life of the natural world, the material cycle of the ecosystem can only be protected and indestructible, and in this way, human nature is exerted, and it becomes a part of the natural world of heaven and earth. This is an ecological philosophical idea. Mencius, on the other hand, spoke more specifically about the principles of environmental protection from the perspective of his harmony between heaven and man. Mencius said: "When it is not against the farm, the valley cannot be eaten." The number of poppies does not enter the pool, and the turtles and turtles are invincible. Axe pounds into the mountains and forests at the time, timber invincible also. (Mencius Liang Huiwang) is to emphasize the protection of mountain forests, the protection of aquatic animal resources, and the adaptation of the environment for agricultural farming. This is ancient environmental ethics.
More importantly, Confucian thought also contains the idea of extending the ethics of benevolence to the natural world. Mencius's words "be kind to the people and benevolent, benevolent to the people and love things (Mencius, Dedication to the Heart)" contains this kind of thinking, zhu Xi said that "everything at present has its own reason, such as a grass and a thing, a bird and a beast, all are reasonable; his own family knows that all things are the same as the body, they cannot bear to see death, they cannot bear to eat meat, they do not cut a tree at any time, they do not kill a beast, they do not kill a fetus, they do not kill a demon, they do not cover their nests, this is inside and outside" (Zhu Zi Yu Class, vol. 15) also contains this kind of thinking.
(Due to space limitations, the article has been abridged)