The first volume is a complete philosophical general knowledge of China from last week to the 1970s.
In the 1970s, the time span was very long, and relatively speaking, for example, like a brief history, it did not involve the modern and contemporary parts. He wrote about the end of the Qing Dynasty, which did not include the current New Confucianism. The New Compilation, with its final supplement, made the entire historical span longer, appearing more complete and systematic. Most importantly, it is a general history of philosophy. The biggest difference between it and Chinese history or Chinese general history is that it is written with philosophy itself as the object of discourse.
The second one emphasizes and studies non Confucian ideas, which should be said to inherit Mr. Hu Shi's viewpoint of placing Confucius and other philosophers on par, without considering Confucian tradition as a particularly important part of its weight, and not necessarily needing to be emphasized due to the weight of Confucianism itself.
For example, in the new edition, we can see systematic discussions on the pre Qin Legalist and Taoist masters, Jixia Huang Lao, as well as later works such as Wei, Jin, Xuanxue, Sui, Tang Buddhism, etc. Therefore, this is not a history of Chinese Confucianism, but a history of Chinese philosophy.
The third step is to increase the analysis of the original data and address the drawbacks of indigestion. At first, Mr. Hu Shi criticized it because he proposed the principle that materials must be verified for authenticity.
So Mr. Hu Shi criticized that the biggest problem with Mr. Feng Youlan's philosophical history is the indigestion of raw materials, because the biggest difficulty in writing history is that you need to have a systematic study and introduction of every character. Given Mr. Feng's initial age and qualifications, writing a history of Chinese philosophy is actually quite difficult. It may be able to conduct a more detailed analysis of the original data on specific literary figures or schools of interest.
At this point, the analysis of the original data in the new edition is more practical, because when it comes to the original data, the most important thing is to talk about "cutting" and be able to empathize with the viewpoints and ideas expressed in the original data. It can be said that Mr. Feng Youlan was able to achieve this after years of philosophical thinking, so the analysis of some data in the new edition is relatively accurate.
The fourth aspect is new methods, new perspectives, and new breakthroughs, which we have already mentioned before. For example, the evaluation of Hong Xiuquan and Zeng Guofan's ideas has caused a strong response in the mainland historical community. This is just a case, but in fact, it shows that Mr. Feng intended a new fundamental principle in his later writing, and "new compilation" was fully reflected in it.
The fifth new edition proposes some viewpoints.
For example, he said, 'Philosophy is the reflection of the human spirit on the spiritual activity of scientific research.'.
The viewpoint is fundamentally different from when he wrote two volumes and wrote the history of Chinese philosophy from the perspective of Western philosophy. If in the past, only Western ideas were used to formalize and interpret ancient Chinese intellectual resources, later on, more emphasis was placed on expressing his reflection on the human spirit and his own understanding and creation of philosophy through historical writing. Therefore, the new edition is also an important expression of Mr. Feng Youlan's philosophical concepts.
From the perspective of the tradition of Chinese philosophy history, the nature and role of philosophy, and the future of world philosophy from the perspective of the tradition of Chinese philosophy.
It should be said that this is the biggest difference compared to the previous two. If Western elements are still used earlier, the latter focuses more on revealing the unique value and role of Chinese philosophy, as well as its contribution to world philosophy.
Let's take a case study here, which is a problem between Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism in the new edition. If we generally believe that there are two different schools of thought between Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism during the Song and Ming dynasties, Neo Confucianism is represented by Cheng Zhu and Neo Confucianism is represented by Lu Wang. Simply put or formatted, the difference between Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism is that one is based on reason, and the other is based on heart.
This is a general viewpoint. When Mr. Feng talked about the differences between Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism in his new work, he said that if we look at Neo Confucianism and interest, that is, how we look at Mahayana and Hinayana, the difference between Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming, he believes that what is important is not the difference between mind and reason, but the difference in methods between the two schools. He believes that Neo Confucianism also emphasizes conceptual analysis, while Neo Confucianism emphasizes the use of direct examples.
Simply put, the difference between Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism is a difference between concepts and intuition, so the difference in methods he mentioned here is not simply a difference in methodology, but also a difference in concepts. It is also said that in terms of grasping the Tao or the truth, and in terms of truly grasping, they believe that Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism achieve the same cognition through two different concepts and methods.
So Mr. Feng's summary can be said to be quite enlightening, but at the same time, he continued the difference between Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism in his new work. He said that Liang Shuming and Xiong Shili should belong to the Neo Confucianism school, while Jin Yuelin and himself should belong to the Neo Confucianism school.
You may not agree with this conclusion. His approach of clarifying the distinction between Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism and developing it into the evaluation of contemporary Chinese philosophers is quite enlightening. Although you may not necessarily agree with his conclusion, this approach itself is worth discussing or a method that can be accepted.
Mr. Feng not only discusses the difference between Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism, but also the difference between conceptual analysis and intuition. He also believes that when we truly want to do philosophy, we should combine these two. He said, "Philosophers should not only have a rational understanding of the main concepts in the history of philosophy, but also an intuitive feeling.
The philosophical training we provide to everyone tends to emphasize rational understanding, whether through logic or analysis, using rational thinking to analyze something differently. He believes that "the way of Neo Confucianism is a kind of 'big use trend', which is not static but dynamic, so you can only use concepts or intuition, and cannot grasp the whole of the way. Therefore, the way of embodiment uses intuition. However, you can understand that concepts are needed, so intuition must be turned into a concept, and its meaning can only be expressed clearly. Therefore, when it comes to concepts and intuition themselves, they cannot be overemphasized or neglected. Therefore, the difference between Neo Confucianism and psychology is that we need to use intuition. It also stems more from this
Therefore, from the perspective of combining Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism, Mr. Feng actually reflected on the entire Cheng Zhu Lu Wang, Liang Shuming, Xiong Shili, Jin Yuelin, and his own methods. He believed that their views or methods could not directly or comprehensively grasp the Tao itself in a certain sense.
So using Cheng Hao, in more formal terms, to be completely integrated with things is intuition. Those who understand this principle are concepts. Only by understanding this principle can you be integrated with yourself. He also used a material from the later conclusions of Wang Yangming and Zhu Xi, which Zhu Xi acknowledged, to illustrate the necessity of combining and unifying Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism. In fact, when it comes to Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism, we should look at the reflection of Yangming's later period, which was a reflection on the unrestrained nature of Neo Confucianism, as well as the reflection of Neo Confucianism itself on Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism itself.
So it can be seen that Mr. Feng himself is inheriting the traditional resources of China, but at the same time, he is constantly reflecting and creating. Therefore, he proposed a debate that goes beyond Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism in order to develop the philosophy of China's future. So he said that the future development path of Chinese philosophy is still to conduct conceptual analysis and clarify philosophical concepts. The second task is to use intuition and be in harmony with the Tao, which is the common task of Neo Confucianism and Neo Confucianism.
So in his final summary, he said that if we recognize that true philosophy is a combination of reason and intuition, then the study of the mind and deeper debates can also come to an end.
However, this is easy to say, it is the combination of rational concepts and intuition. But how to combine these two, how to perfectly combine them, is a very difficult task for every philosopher. Even Mr. Feng Youlan said that I am constantly developing myself on this path, but he did not say that I have achieved a perfect combination of these two concepts and methods.
Zong Pu is Mr. Feng's daughter. When she talked about Feng Youlan's "Three Histories", she said that her father's contributions can be seen from three aspects: the history of philosophy and education. If the first two were in the field of learning, education was his credit. His two or three philosophical histories, the first two volumes, are considered by the academic community to be the first complete history of Chinese philosophy organized using modern logical methods, because Hu Shi had written it before, but he only wrote half of it.
Mr. Feng, the second work is a brief history. In the words of Mr. Zong, she said it is a book that is easy to understand and extraordinary. Every time you read it, it makes you feel very fresh. It is a great book that expresses the essence of Chinese philosophy in simple words.
The third work, which is a new edition of the history of Chinese philosophy in seven volumes, was written by Zong Pu. Zong Pu said that the fate of this series of books was very bumpy, and it can be said that it is a large cultural history that involves many aspects. The seventh volume has never been published by the People's Publishing House because it talks about modern revolution. It was renamed as the History of Chinese Philosophy and published in 1999. There is a small incident in the middle of this. In the 1990s, an Italian digital library wanted to collect world-renowned classics and asked Wang Meng to provide ten Chinese classics. At that time, he proposed the Analects, Zhuangzi, Dream of the Red Chamber, and the complete works of Lu Xun, and finally added a new edition of the history of Chinese philosophy!
