Seeing the confused expressions of the people below, Wang Xiaolie also felt helpless. This knowledge sounds boring and boring. And for those who speak, this knowledge is very simple and should be understood as soon as it is spoken. But for those who listen, it is obscure and difficult to understand.
He took a sip of water to moisten his throat. Wang Xiaolie continued: "There are degrees and no boundaries, which means that the world is not the same everywhere, but different. For people, these differences are different matters. In order to understand these matters and explain them clearly, we must All kinds of names are given to us. When we give names, we have to define these names. When we define the names, we draw the boundaries. In the human world, every name has boundaries. Beyond the boundaries, It is no longer a matter of this name. But in the real world, there are no boundaries. Each name is just defined by people for their own convenience. The knowledge formed by these names, combined with the changes in the world, is of course also It is not the true face of the world. This is how we use the names and knowledge formed by humans to understand the world bit by bit and approach the reality bit by bit."
"By approaching reality in this way, what we realize can never be the real world. It is always worse, more or less. We don't know what the real world is like and how the world changes. This world we don't know, Call it the Tao.”
"In a world with degrees and no boundaries, how do we understand the world? The difference in degrees must be firmly grasped, and the absence of boundaries must be clear, in order to firmly grasp the differences in various matters. Once we forget this, we must have different names for matters with different names. Trying to find a boundary often leads to confusion. In the end, you even forget what the name means.”
"We know it this way. For example, there are two high places on the earth, which we call mountains. The low place between the mountains, we call it a valley. The mountains and valleys look very obvious. This mountain and That mountain is very clearly distinguished. But the boundary between the two is actually difficult to distinguish. If we draw a line between the two mountains, this mountain is on this side of the line, and that mountain is on the other side of the line. Mountain. Even if this line happens to be drawn in the middle of two mountains, this boundary is unreal. If the drawn line is removed and a person is asked to find the lowest place and say that is the boundary between the two mountains. Then This person either has not reached the boundary but thinks he has arrived, or he has crossed the boundary and thinks he has not yet reached it, and cannot find the boundary. What's more, the boundary is a precise position, but the real world is not so precise. The boundaries we know are considered precise. In fact, it is a large or small range. On the edge of the boundary, as long as you think about it, you can always get closer to the boundary and eventually reach the other side."
Having said this, Wang Xiaolie shook his head, feeling that what he said was not clear. But for the moment, I couldn't think of a better way to say it.
The following people have all read some books and are not very knowledgeable, so they cannot explain it too clearly. The examples given are only meant to be simple and easy to understand, but they are actually not very appropriate. We can only let them have a general idea first, and then gradually deepen it later.
It’s impossible not to talk about these contents. There must be a basis for why such a government is established, why these officials are recruited, and why things are done as they are. If Wang Xiaolie decided to do this just because his brain was hot, how could it be possible to form a system.
As a political organization, it must have its own philosophy. If you don’t have your own philosophy, you have to borrow someone else’s philosophy. Or to put it in traditional Chinese terms, political organizations must have their own ideas. If there is no thought, the soul is lost.
European civilization originated from concepts, and then formed its own logic, thus forming a set of ideological systems. They also discovered the difference between the conceptual world and the real world, thus forming the division between the rational world and the perceptual world. It’s just that they believe that the rational world is real and the perceptual world is unreal. This has to do with European beliefs, which ultimately boil down to the all-powerful Lord.
Wang Xiaolie starts from traditional Chinese thought and does not believe that there is a distinction between the rational world and the perceptual world, there is only one world. This only world is the world of heaven. People live in the real world, but their understanding of the world is not real. We can only feel the Tao and understand the Tao from the side, but we cannot truly explain the Tao clearly.
The distinction between name and reality has been an important issue in Chinese thought since more than two thousand years ago. At that time, it was also the time for everyone to preach. Laozi left behind the Tao Te Ching, and Confucius said, "He who hears the Tao in the morning will die in the evening."
In the West, this issue attracted attention very late. Important figures somewhat related to this, such as Wittgenstein, are also important thinkers in Europe and the United States. But unlike Chinese civilization, they tell it from another aspect.
When I was watching short videos in my previous life, there was a professor who studied Chinese philosophy and he should be quite famous. He emphasized Chinese philosophy and told a short story. At one meeting, there were twenty or thirty professors studying Western philosophy, and he was the only one studying Chinese philosophy. Professors who studied Western philosophy looked down upon him. Then he talked about the Diamond Sutra and said: The Buddha said Prajna Tantra. Since it is not Prajna Tantra, it is called Prajna Tantra. Then ask others what is Prajna Tantra. Twenty or thirty Western philosophy professors were unable to answer and admitted that Chinese philosophy was great. Finally, he said that Chinese philosophy should respect Western philosophy, but Western philosophy should not look down on Chinese philosophy as it is not qualified.
The three sentences are actually still a distinction between name and reality, there is nothing strange about them. It's just that this question has appeared in various ways throughout history and in various schools of thought. In Wang Xiaolie's view, the problem explained in this short video is not how profound the issue is, but the status of Chinese thought in reality. In China, when there is a philosophy conference, twenty or thirty people study Western philosophy, but only one studies Chinese philosophy. Still in China, those who study Western philosophy look down upon those who study Chinese philosophy.
Hegel, one of the most famous philosophers in the West, once considered Chinese language to be an inferior language because of his unclear concept. Some Chinese people have learned from Hegel and think so.
how to say? Wang Xiaolie can only say that in a civilized classroom, if you are just a third-rate student, don't pretend to be first-rate.
The distinction between Tao and name and reality will directly shake the foundation of European and American civilization. It’s not that European and American civilization is wrong in Europe and the United States, but that those who want to move European and American civilization, especially European and American philosophy, to China have lost their roots.
The reason is simple: Europeans and Americans have religious beliefs. In the end, there is always one God who comes out to clean up the mess. In China, there is no such omnipotent God, but Tao.
This has nothing to do with materialism and idealism. In fact, the difference between the two is closely related to European civilization. But for Chinese civilization, without the only God and without the rational world associated with the only God, there will be problems with the knowledge that connects concepts together.
Some people say I don’t believe in God. So what? If that god appeared in front of you, if Buddha appeared in front of you, would you still be able to persevere? Chinese civilization can persist. Because in Chinese civilization, there is a Tao that is superior to the gods and Buddhas in the sky.
People often ask, if modern science appeared in China, would it still be what it was in history? Definitely not. But what it will be like, it didn’t happen in history, so I don’t know. Just like Joseph Needham asked, why did industrialization not take the lead in China? How can the Chinese answer this? All I can say is, we are unfilial descendants.
There are twenty to thirty times as many people studying Western philosophy as there are people studying Chinese philosophy. This data itself illustrates the value orientation. It has been one hundred and fifty years since the Chinese government sent the first batch of international students to the United States. In the past 150 years, to be honest, the Chinese have not learned much in philosophy. What we really learned is to go back to China and completely criticize Chinese civilization. I also learned that the facts are not important, but the theories I learned are important. If the facts don't match my theory, then the facts are wrong.
When quantum theory was proposed, Einstein simply couldn't believe it. Of course, in the end, Einstein was wrong.
There are many scientists in history, including the British, Germans, and even the Chinese, who ultimately believed in God. Although some people truly believe in a personal God, others believe in an impersonal Creator. Why? Because this ideological system comes from this.
Does science only look one way? Is there only one kind of human society?
Wang Xiaolie raised his head and saw the large ginkgo branch next to the wall with green leaves, motionless. He shook his head slightly.
