The clouds in the sky became thicker and the sun dimmed. I don't know when a breeze started, and it wasn't as hot as before.
Wang Xiaolie looked up at the sky and then at the people below. Said: "What I'm going to talk about below may be a bit boring. I've thought about it for a long time, and I think it's better to talk about it. You'd better write it down and think about it later. I may be right or wrong, and I need your participation."
"The Tao Te Ching says at the beginning that Tao can be Tao, but it is not Tao; names can be named, but they are not very famous. There are many interpretations of this sentence, and I don't know which one is correct. I don't know why Lao Tzu said this sentence. What did I think at that time, and what does it originally mean. I only talk about my own understanding, and you can refer to it. Tao encompasses everything, and we are born in the world, and naturally we are also within the scope of Tao. This raises a question, can we Know the Tao."
"I think it should be said that we can know Tao, but we cannot fully know Tao. Our understanding of Tao is always partial. This point may not seem important, but it is actually very important. From this we can know our understanding of the world and the universe. Our understanding is incorrect, at least incomplete. We speculate on the whole based on what we have already known, including those that we have not recognized, and it will never be consistent with the facts. What we think is right, from the perspective of Tao, They are all wrong. When we do things, we must be very clear about this. Don’t think that there is nothing in the world that you don’t know, and that you are omniscient and omnipotent just because you know a little bit of knowledge.”
"In the process of understanding the world, we have given it a lot of names. For example, there is the sky above, the earth below, and there are mountains, rivers, plains, and so on. It must be very clear that these names are The names given by people are not inherent in heaven and earth. It must also be very clear that the knowledge and laws summarized by these names come from people, not from heaven and earth."
The distinction between name and reality is a famous issue in Chinese thought. For example, the white horse is not a horse, which is a famous example of Gongsun Long. Li Jianbai, which Wang Xiaolie likes to talk about the most, is another example.
This question is one of the core of human understanding of the world. Two thousand years later, there is actually no solution. Famous scholars are by no means a sophistry as some people understand. In the words of later generations, this is a fundamental issue in philosophy. Therefore, the annotations of these people's works by later generations will give people a strange feeling. Some people are okay, and some philosophers like to add simple so-and-so qualifiers to them. From the perspective of those who add the qualifier, saying this means that ancient China also had such thoughts, which is a compliment. In fact, in the eyes of readers, the person who added the qualifier feels that he is superior to these people, which makes people feel ridiculous.
Chinese thought has rarely made great progress since the Yuan Dynasty. Wang Yangming of the Ming Dynasty proposed the theory of mind, but it lacked the pioneering nature of previous studies and was not widely circulated. However, the spread of ideas of Huang Zongxi, Wang Fuzhi and others was even smaller. By the time the Qing Dynasty arrived, thousands of horses were in silence.
In this situation, when facing the Western invasion in the late Qing Dynasty, Chinese culture was in a very bad state to learn Western culture. The result is that Western culture has not been learned very well, and China's own culture has been abandoned.
In natural science, this kind of thing is very obvious, and everyone is not surprised about it. For example, Newton's law of gravity, and later the more precise theory of relativity. What about after relativity? People haven't found out yet. But in social sciences, many people cannot get out. When talking about humanistic issues, they most like to talk about Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Kant. Some people also like to talk about smaller philosophers, and they think it is particularly stylish. To be honest, this is mostly just pretending to understand.
Different civilizations have different views on the world and on human beings. This is normal. It cannot be considered correct to believe that people in the world are all the same and should have a common past, a common present and a common future.
Wang Xiaolie has thought about this issue for a long time, and now that he talks about it, he feels that he has a lot to say. But when I opened my mouth, I felt that there was nothing left to say. Looking at everyone, they were silent for a while.
"We have given many names to the affairs of this world, and these names need to be defined. If the affairs referred to by these names already exist in the world, then the definitions should be precise. But in fact, where is the precise definition? Giving a name originally just means that this world is different from there, this thing is different from that thing, this thing is different from that thing. Of course there should be a definition, and the reference should also be clear. For example, Mount Tai is different from Mount Hua. It is different from Songshan Mountain, there is no doubt about it. But where is the boundary of a mountain is a big problem. From a distance, we know it is Mount Tai, but where exactly the boundary of Mount Tai is cannot be accurately drawn. We You know, what we look like is called human beings. But what does it mean to be human? I can’t explain clearly.”
"I call this problem having degrees without boundaries. Only with degrees can we separate this matter from other matters and give it a name. But this name has no clear boundaries. All the boundaries are artificially drawn. Moreover, It means artificially drawing a clear boundary, but this boundary is not clear and will always be broken by new discoveries. If you understand this, you will avoid making mistakes in many things."
The fact that the boundaries are not clear and easy to be breached has a very vivid name in later generations, sausage slicing. If you draw a boundary for something, the enemy will always harass you near the boundary. As time goes by, the boundary will become apparent.
This is the essential characteristic of the world. It is neither cunning nor honest. Clear boundaries should never be drawn.
"In order to understand the world, in order to be able to describe the world we know, people have to give many names. By connecting the names one by one, adding causes, processes, results, and some other content, it becomes knowledge. We must remember that these Knowledge is man-made by human beings based on their own understanding. Neither names nor knowledge are generated by heaven and earth, nor are they the content of Tao. We are under the Tao of Heaven, and these names and knowledge are just a way for us to understand the world. Rather than the way of heaven itself. How can we understand the way of heaven with these names and knowledge? According to Buddhist teachings, it must be enlightened. According to our Han teachings, it is called experience. Although what I hear is one, I feel two in my heart."
"Under the way of heaven, what we want to get is the Tao. Names and knowledge are just means. Don't be obsessed with means and forget the roots. Officials who govern the people should not be trapped in laws and regulations, but should always remember the people."
One of the characteristics of Western civilization is that there is no Tao, and they do not pay attention to Tao. In their case, the substitute for the Word was God, their omnipotent Lord. Before the Lord, they believed in a rational world consisting of the knowledge of names.
Some people have learned some philosophical knowledge and like to talk about the rational world. Some even say that this is the reason why Western civilization is stronger than Chinese civilization. This is not correct. This is just a different understanding and understanding of the world between the two civilizations.
Western civilization, whether it is natural science or humanities, attaches great importance to concepts and the definition of concepts.
For example, in natural sciences, living and non-living things need to be defined, and in biology, animals and plants need to be defined. Later it was discovered that there were neither animals nor plants, but also a microorganism. If you find more later, keep adding, keep defining.
For example, in social sciences, we must first define human beings. No matter how clear the definition is, or how scientific the definition is, in fact there are either non-human creatures that are human by definition, or there are creatures that are clearly human but are not human by definition.
In Western civilization, this cannot be solved and is an essential attribute of civilization.
