Li Zehou: Reading and writing articles

Today I had a discussion with the seventh and seventh grade students of the Chinese Department, and I felt very cordial. First of all, I wish you all ahead far more than our generation.

Your younger generation has all gone down an extraordinary path of your own. In the past few years, you have lost a lot of time, suffered a lot of losses, and paid a great price. However, you can turn the price you pay into great wealth, and turn the life you experience into a new achievement in the humanities-social sciences. Cherish your past experiences because it will help you think better. It is unlikely that your generation will be able to achieve much in the natural sciences, and I am afraid that it will depend on the younger generation. But I want you to exert strength in literary and artistic creation, in philosophy and social sciences, and in future executive leadership. Some students just told me that they feel that their knowledge is too poor. I think that not enough knowledge is not too big a problem. In fact, you can read a lot of books in a year. Liberal arts and science and engineering are different, do not engage in experiments, mainly rely on a lot of reading. Therefore, I think there are three conditions: first, there must be time, try to strive for more free time to read; second, to have books, to rely on the library, after all, personal purchase of books and books is limited; third, to pay attention to methods. I don't think mentoring is a necessity. It doesn't matter if there is a mentor or not. Even natural scientists like Einstein can have no mentors, and the liberal arts are even more so. Of course it's good to have a mentor. However, when I went to college, I was reluctant to be a graduate student, and I felt that having a tutor was easy to be bound. I don't know if this is correct. However, I think it is important to develop your ability to study and work independently as soon as possible.

There are two aspects to learning. In addition to learning knowledge, it is more important to cultivate ability. Knowledge is nothing but material. Cultivating competencies is more important than accumulating knowledge. The ability I speak of includes the ability to judge, for example: a book, a point of view, to judge whether it is correct or not, whether it is valuable or not, to determine the trade-offs; the ability to choose, for example, a large number of books, to choose which ones are what you need the most, and which ones can be roughly turned over. Bacon's "On Reading" is very good, some books can taste it, some should be chewed carefully, some should be read quickly, and some should be digested slowly. Some books do not have to be read from beginning to end, and some books even have to be read more than a dozen times. The method of reading is important. Reading can not be based on interest alone, and some books have to be read hard without interest. When I say that we should strive for the most time, I not only mean that there is more time, but also that we must be good at using time to the greatest extent and improve the effect of unit time. Reading some books that are not worth reading is a waste of time. For example, reading novels, I have liked to read novels since I was a child, but then I restricted myself to reading only those novels that are worth reading. It is best to read books systematically and purposefully. For example, looking at Russian novels, from Pushkin to Gorky, reading those famous works, reading them, and then reading one or two copies of the History of Russian Literature, the specific materials and historical clues combine to organize your knowledge structure of Russian literature. This means being good at organizing knowledge and incorporating it into your structure. The methods of reading are also diverse. We must be good at summarizing our own reading methods and learning experience, constantly improving our own methods in the summary, and improving and enriching our knowledge structure, which is also considered "self-awareness". Cultivating the habit of fast reading and improving the speed of reading also belongs to the fight for more time. The ancients said "one eye and ten lines", I think it can be done, it is not bad, for some books, it is not necessary to understand and understand word by word, but as soon as possible to grasp the main things in the book, to get the overall impression. The same can be true of looking at other people's papers.

Liberal arts students should not rely on textbooks and classrooms alone, which give us very limited knowledge, I am afraid that they can only account for 5% to 10%. I basically didn't take many classes in college, that is, I took two years of United Communist Party (Brazzaville) party history class, because you can't go, he named it. I sat in class and couldn't help it, so I had to read a book myself or write a letter, and people thought I was taking notes. Actually, my notes are all my own reading notes. When I was in college, many classes were not taught, the history of Chinese philosophy was not opened, and dialectical materialism and historical materialism were not listened to. At that time, Soviet experts gave lectures and sent some students, but I was not selected, and I was secretly happy at that time, thankfully. At that time, soviet experts had a high reputation and were known as Marxism-Leninism, but in fact, the level was not high. They often scolded Hegel and could not make much sense, and I thought that this was not consistent with what Marx and Lenin said. At that time, I translated a lot of pamphlets written by the Soviets explaining Marxism, but I read them a few times and stopped reading them. Now it seems that I took advantage of the university to study the original works of Marx and Lenin, not to read the materials relayed by others. Therefore, it is better to read first-hand materials and read the original works. Before liberation, I secretly read several books written by Marx, which were read as forbidden books at that time, such as "Louis Bonaparte's Coup". I saw in these books a new way of studying social history, a new theory, which was very inspiring. After reading the first-hand material, we can make comparative judgments without having to look at what is paraphrased first. In short, I am advocating relying on the library, relying on myself, relying on reading original materials.

Let's talk about the problem of "Bo". This problem has always existed, and it is not easy to solve. I think it is better to have a broader knowledge and a broader field of knowledge. When I was in college, I had a judgment on the weaknesses of the three departments of literature, history and philosophy. I think that the shortcomings of the philosophy department are "emptiness", do not relate to specific problems, there are more abstract concepts, and the advantage is to stand higher; the weakness of the history department is "narrow", the advantage is to drill deeper, often to a certain point very deeply, but for other aspects, they always think that they have nothing to do with themselves, and they are not interested and do not care much; the shortcomings of the Chinese department are "shallow" and lack depth, but the advantage is that reading books is more extensive and has a wide range of interests. When it comes to your department, don't be surprised. I was in the Philosophy Department at the time, and I read all the books on literature, history and philosophy. Read Plato in the morning, read Belinsky in the afternoon, others think there is no connection, I don't care about it. So I never read the reference books assigned by the teacher, I have my own reading plan. Among them, reading history books is very important, and I still think that to study a certain problem, it is best to read one or two history books first. History reveals the antecedents and consequences of a thing's existence, thus helping you analyze its present and future. Marx studied law, but he loved philosophy and history. Why do some people who are engaged in literary history always fail to jump out of the circle of writers' works? It is because there is not enough study of history. The general history of philosophy is not deeply understood, and most of the reasons are the same. The reason why your former president, Mr. Hou Wailu, has a deeper study of the history of thought is that he attaches more importance to Chinese history. Studying social phenomena has a historical perspective that allows you to look deeper and find out the regularities. Regularity is revealed in time. You have a sense of history, and what you see is not just superficial things, but regular things. The basic point of Marxism is historical materialism. For a thing, we should grasp its most basic things, determine its historical position, and thus understand it. Reading history books is also an aspect of expanding knowledge. Now the development of science, on the one hand, is that the division of labor is becoming more and more detailed, and there is no longer an encyclopedic scholar like Aristotle; on the other hand, the integration of various disciplines has emerged, and many marginal sciences have emerged. Cybernetics, for example, is a combination of several disciplines, which is a characteristic of scientific development since the fifties. When being a student, the field of knowledge is wider, and you can touch the bypass in the future. Don't engage in narrow utilitarianism in learning. To study, we must consider improving the entire knowledge structure and the entire cultural literacy. If your knowledge is too narrow, your ability to analyze, synthesize, select, and judge will inevitably be affected and limited.

Let's talk about the "specialized" aspect. Here's just writing articles. Reading should be broad, extensive, and extensive, but when writing articles, I advocate that we must first be specialized, detailed, and deep, and from the former, it is said that it is "looking at the small with the big", which can be said to be "seeing the big with the small" and "from the small to the big". You are now working on your graduation thesis, and the smaller the topic, the better. As far as I have come into contact with, the common problem of young people is that they want to do very big topics at the beginning, such as "on art", establishing a "new aesthetic system", and so on, but it is generally difficult to get it right. You may say, didn't you start out with a system, a "research syllabus" or something like that? Actually, that wasn't my first article. The first topics I worked on in college were some very small topics in the history of modern ideas. Start researching, first engage in large and empty topics, you can't control the material, you can't structure the article, often half the work. The research topics that can be started can be more specific and smaller, and then gradually expanded after gaining experience. Therefore, despite the suggestions of quite a few enthusiastic comrades, I do not intend to write a treatise on the establishment of a philosophical system. It's not that I can't write, if I write it now, I can also make a bit of a splash in the current ideological circles, but I feel unreliable, and I think I can write it later when I am more mature. Kant's philosophical system has been established for two hundred years now, and this year in West Germany marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the publication of his major works. When Kant wrote his book at that time, the intellectual world was full of many works, and only Kant's book gave such a long-term impact on the history of human thought. Therefore, we must aspire to write valuable books, and write things that can stand the test of time. What is written must contribute to humanity, and there must be such lofty ambitions. In short, if you read a lot of books, read a lot, and are good at using this broad and profound knowledge to deal with a small problem, then of course the success rate is high. So you can have a big plan, but it's better to start with a point or start with one point. In addition, it is also important to choose a research topic, and I think that the topic should not be written by others. I have a certain point of view, an opinion, before I choose the topic. Writing an essay, like writing a poem, must be felt and sent. Some people can't find the research topic, they want others to come up with the topic, they don't know what to do, this is not good. In their extensive reading, they should find problems, find problems or blank spots that have not been solved by previous generations, and have some knowledge and views of their own, so that they can start to study from this place. When choosing a topic, we must think about how meaningful the topic is, how likely it is to succeed, to minimize blindness, and not to blindly choose the goal. It's like oil drilling, you have to really estimate that there is oil in this place, and then you go to drill wells. If there is no estimate, blindly fighting, no oil, and then move a place at will, move around, what is the life span?

There are three factors in academic articles, which have been said before. The first is "righteousness," which, in our words, is a new point of view and a new view. The second is the "evidence", that is, the material, or the fresh material, or the rich material, or the old material has a new use and new interpretation. The third is the "word chapter", that is, the article is logical and literary. Every time you write an article, you should also estimate which aspect you can do more prominently and have your own characteristics. In short, write an article to be new, there is no novelty, it is best not to write an article.

Academic research is also related to the temperament of each person. Some people have strong analytical skills and can engage in meticulous and profound problems. At present, many foreign studies are very detailed, and the details of a writer's work are very clear and detailed, which is also very useful. But personally, I am not used to this, not used to studying only one person in a lifetime, examining a certain thing, drilling into a certain detail. I am also a person, he is also a person, why do I have to accompany him for the rest of my life? Can't cross it. But as long as someone is interested, they can study only one writer, one book, one small problem in their lifetime. This can also make a valuable contribution, and it seems that such a detailed thematic research should be promoted now. In short, research topics, approaches, and methods can be a variety of flowers and eclectic. Neither can we think that only the evidence is considered knowledgeable, and everything else is bullshit and empty talk (which is actually the prejudice of scholars below the second rate); nor can it be considered that the evidence is useless and all are canceled, which is the left view.

When some students reflected that there was not much difference between the current college education and the situation when Mr. Li was studying, and everyone generally felt that it was not suitable for the cultivation of creative talents, Li said:

You're in a better situation now than I was then. At that time, the thinking was more rigid, all soviet. Over the past few decades, I have also suffered many setbacks. However, we must grasp the value of life, establish our own inner personality values, and be indifferent to reputation, and honor and disgrace can be ignored.

When some students talked about the difficulties in academic research, Li said: ——

Academic research should pay attention to resourcefulness, and a small problem may become smaller and smaller, so that it will drill into the tip of the bull's horn and cannot come out. A small problem may also be bigger and bigger, too big to be boundless, so that it cannot be solved. So be judgmental. Research problems must come step by step, otherwise "cutting continuously, rationalizing and chaos" will never end. It is impossible to demand that everything be understood in order to obtain the results of the study as if it were absolute truth.

Academic research should be good at comparison and find characteristics in comparison. Comparison can show the law of phenomena, but it is not the same as seeing the law of essence. Research and study should be good at building on their strengths and complementing each other's weaknesses, discovering their own abilities and developing their own strengths.

This article is a transcript of the author's speech at the Symposium of Chinese Departments at Northwestern University in the summer of 1979

(Originally published in Shulin, No. 5, 1981)