So, when I shift my thoughts towards a goal, I will adjust my behavior accordingly. For example, he divided his ideological changes into three periods. The first period is called the practical period, and I focus on practicality; The second period is release, believing in Buddhism, and I am determined to become a monk. Later, at the age of twenty-seven or eight, he said that if I started to turn to Confucianism, I would live a Confucian life. I initially wanted to become a monk, but later got married and had children, living a Confucian lifestyle.
So, his life was basically a process of unifying knowledge and action. Wang Yangming talked about the unity of knowledge and action, but traditional Chinese scholars are basically like this. Therefore, Mr. Jin Yuelin has a saying that the thoughts of traditional Chinese thinkers are their biographies, which means that their thoughts and actions are completely unified. Or rather, he is essentially pursuing such a unity, although it cannot be completely unified. He is pursuing such a unity.
Since modern times, these two aspects have been divided. Some people are studying Confucianism and calling it a Confucian master, but suddenly they do something bad and get caught in prison. This is because their behavior is completely separate from what they have learned. This is a characteristic of modern academia.
Mr. Liang has a unique philosophy of his own and a spirit of putting it into practice. For example, his tradition is a habit that has been cultivated. In modern Chinese society, we need to undergo a transformation, and we do not have this set of habits such as democracy. Therefore, we need to cultivate a new political habit. Therefore, Mr. Liang began to engage in activities called the rural governance movement and went to many places to carry out such practical activities. So, he worked at Peking University for seven years before resigning from his teaching position. Today, you are resigning from your position as a professor at Peking University, which is not easy. Besides being a professor, what else can you do? There's nothing else you can do.
Mr. Liang believes that we need to cultivate a new political habit in order to transform our entire society. We need to start from the grassroots level, so he started this rural governance movement. Therefore, he is a person who combines knowledge with action. In addition, Mr. Ma Yifu, who founded the Fuxing Academy in Leshan, Sichuan during the Anti Japanese War, also aimed to promote the development of folk academia. But in modern Chinese society, scholars like Mr. Liang and Mr. Ma Yifu, who emphasize the internal unity of academia and life, are not the mainstream, they are not the mainstream.
So, during this period, since the emergence of this discipline of Chinese philosophy, its differentiation has first manifested as the disciplinary and academic nature of Chinese philosophy, as well as its isolation from social life. It has become an academic and theoretical activity for professionals within the academy, with little relation to social life. However, during this period, the differentiation between philosophy and the history of philosophy was not yet clear within the academy. There were older generations of Chinese philosophical workers, whom we call workers today, philosophers in the past, and now we dare not call philosophers. For example, individuals dare not call themselves philosophers, but rather philosophical workers.
The older generation of philosophers were not only historians, but also engaged in the creation of a theory. Although he has become disconnected from social life, philosophy and the history of philosophy have not been separated. For example, we can look at Mr. Feng Youlan's own life experience. He said he has three histories, and then he has six books, which are the six books of the Zhenyuan era.
The Three Histories refer to three philosophical histories, and the Six Books refer to the six books written by the Zhenyuan during the Anti Japanese War and at the Southwest Associated University. Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, Neo Confucianism, and Neo Confucianism. The three histories are the history of Chinese philosophy, a brief history of Chinese philosophy, and a new edition of the history of Chinese philosophy. These three histories are his works on the history of philosophy, but at the same time, he has six books, which are his theoretical system of philosophy. He uses his own philosophical theoretical system to study the history of philosophy.
A set of theories in the study of the history of philosophy is created by itself, not by outsiders. But later on, it was different. When he was writing a new edition of the history of Chinese philosophy, he borrowed things from outside and carried out his own ideological transformation, abandoning the idealism of the past.
That is to say, in order to build a modern country in our contemporary era, we must first draw on our history. Therefore, he said that his own work is to "clarify the old state to support the new destiny", which is to establish a new philosophy. And when he works on the history of philosophy, his goal is not in history. He believes that in order to build a new era and a modern China, there needs to be a new philosophical system. This system is certainly not the responsibility of one person, but a group of philosophers. It is not simply Mao Zedong's responsibility. Of course, we have been using one person's ideas as a contemporary philosophy for many years, and everything else is not. This is problematic.
Mr. Feng said that in order to build a modern China, we must have a new philosophical system, and his philosophical history is to provide materials and nourishment for the philosophical system of the heart. So, there are two types of philosophy he talks about, one is called 'following the example', and the other is called 'continuing the example'. 'Following the example' is the history of philosophy, and 'continuing the example' is the creation of a new philosophical system.
So, this generation of philosophers originally had a deep understanding of traditional culture and the cultivation of old learning, while also accepting Western learning. Like Mr. Feng, he had a family school. His father was a jinshi in the former Qing Dynasty, and his grandfather was also a poet. He had been memorizing the Four Books and Five Classics since childhood, but he didn't understand them at that time. Later, when he went to study philosophy at Peking University, he slowly digested and understood them.
So, philosophers at this time all had strong creativity in this kind of thinking. Today, when we talk about contemporary Chinese philosophy, we mainly refer to the philosophical creations of this group of people, or rather, the ideological creations of Chinese philosophers outside of Marxist philosophy. Its representative figures are mainly Liang Shuming, Xiong Shili, Feng Youlan, who continue tradition and create their own philosophical theories in the process of the intersection of Chinese and Western cultures. But at this point, it should be said that this theoretical creation is still something from the study, which is basically disconnected from social life. This is the first stage.
The second stage was after 1949, when the study of Chinese philosophy completely separated from the theory of philosophy. Of course, it has completely detached itself from social life and become a simple form of historical knowledge, and I call it a bad form of historical knowledge. That means you are detached from a philosophical theory, you are detached from the creation of your own theory, and such knowledge can only be some unreal knowledge.
In the early years of the Republic of China, there was a movement to organize national heritage, and its slogan was to use scientific methods to organize national heritage. That's why national heritage is a set of materials, such as the Complete Library of Four Treasures. It is a set of data in itself, without living life, and lacks methods, which was a view of scholars at that time. We need to introduce a set of methods from the West, a scientific approach, to organize and study the traditional Chinese historical materials that lack a systematic system, in order to form a modern academic system.
After the 1950s, this method was still continued. This scientific method of organizing national heritage has been continued as a research approach. At the same time, another thing worth noting is that ideology is gradually replacing the creation of ideas, occupying a unified discourse position, or the dominant position of speech. This has led to the complete detachment of research on traditional Chinese thought and academia from social life, limited to a narrow field within the academy. At the same time, the historical tradition within academy academia has further degenerated into a mere historical knowledge, completely in the past tense and completely disconnected from reality. Therefore, it has also lost the meaning of its creative origin and the meaning of its cultural life.
In 1952, there was a nationwide departmental adjustment, and all philosophy departments in the country were concentrated at Peking University. All philosophy departments in the country were abolished, and there was only one philosophy department in the country, which was the Philosophy Department of Peking University. At that time, the Philosophy Department of Peking University should be said to have gathered a large number of philosophers from all over the country, top-notch philosophers. However, in such a unique philosophy department across the country, what were everyone doing?
So, according to Mr. Zhang Dainian's memoirs at that time, the Philosophy Department of Peking University was divided into four professional groups: one was called the Logic Teaching and Research Group, the second was called the Marxist Leninist Course Teaching and Guidance Group, the third was called the Chinese Philosophy Historical Materials Research Group, and the fourth was called the Western Philosophy Compilation Group.
We cannot ignore the first two because we can only provide guidance on Marxist philosophy. Therefore, we dare not even refer to it as a research group for Chinese historical materials or a compilation group for Western philosophical materials. Bringing together most of the top philosophers in the country, the only philosophy department in the country, these philosophers only do two things: one is to compile materials on Western philosophy, and the other is to study the history of Chinese philosophy.
So, in such an extreme state, there were some changes later, but no fundamental changes were made. In such a situation, the study of philosophy is completely detached from the production and creation of ideas and theories. Philosophy, by its nature, is a productive and creative process. Philosophy loses its essence and becomes a simple task of organizing historical materials and imparting historical knowledge. So, the production of philosophical ideas is only the work of a few individuals and leaders.
So, the older generation of philosophers, who had already established their own philosophical system 49 years ago, were forced to undergo ideological transformation and abandon their original philosophical thinking. Mr. Feng is like this, just an example. But Mr. Zhang Dainian is no exception. In his memoirs, he mentioned that in the 1940s, he was also influenced by Mr. Feng and Mr. Jin Yuelin. He also wrote a set of works called "Five Treatises on Heaven and Man", which expressed his own ideological system. But after the 1950s, he said that I could only stick to old paper and completely stop thinking about ideas, theories, and philosophy. He felt it was a great pity. So, the older generation of philosophers were struggling with their thoughts at this time. Completely returning to a study of history, a transmission of historical knowledge.
