The attitude of Confucius and Confucianism as a whole towards religion and ghosts and gods has had a great impact on the Chinese people's view of religion, world and philosophy over the past 2000 years. Religion is a product of almost every nation. It can be said that it represents a nation’s world view and philosophy. China’s religious concepts and attitudes starting from Confucius reflect the huge gap between Chinese and Western thought, and even in some ways The extent determines the direction of civilization. Confucius’ Occam’s Razor
First of all, we need to understand what Confucius’ views on religion are.
It is recorded in "The Analects of Confucius·Yong Ye":
Fan Chi asked about it, and Confucius said: "The meaning of serving the people is to respect ghosts and gods and keep them at a distance. This can be said to be known."
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Translated into modern Chinese: Fan Chi asked Confucius what wisdom (knowledge) is. Confucius said: "Concentrating on the morality that people should follow, respecting ghosts and gods but staying away from them can be said to be wisdom. . ”
In Confucius’ view, a gentleman should first do what he should do and fulfill his necessary obligations, and should keep a respectful distance from ghosts and gods. The so-called "respect and keep away" is as the name suggests: show respect to ghosts and gods by staying far away. The key point is "stay away" and don't get too close to ghosts and gods.
It is directly recorded in "The Analects of Confucius·Shuer":
Ye Gong asked Confucius about Zilu, and Zilu was wrong.
Confucius said: "Nv Xibu said: As a human being, he is so angry that he forgets to eat, he is happy and forgets his worries, and he does not know that old age is coming. You said it."
Confucius said: " I am not born with knowledge, but I love the ancients and am keen to pursue them."
Zi Buyu's strange power confuses the spirit.
Regarding this paragraph, the "Analects of Confucius" explains it this way: "Strange things, bravery, and chaotic things are not righteous, and the saints are silent. Ghosts, gods, and traces of creation are not unrighteous. , but it is not a matter of exhaustion. If there are things that are not easy to understand, it should not be underestimated. Talking about people but not about gods."
In other words, the "gods" in the strange and chaotic gods refer to things that cannot be measured by common sense, cannot be seen and touched in reality, and are not the same as ordinary people's daily lives. Things that have nothing to do with life. The "Xie family" cited in "The Analects of Confucius" is Xie Liangzuo, a great Neo-Confucian scholar in the Northern Song Dynasty, one of the Four Masters of Cheng Men. His interpretation profoundly influenced Zhu Xi and the development of Chinese Analects of Confucius after the Southern Song Dynasty and the development of Confucianism as a whole.
Strange, force, chaos, and god correspond to normality, virtue, governance, and people respectively. In general, Confucius paid more attention to the real society and was a typical pragmatic rationalist. "If you don't know life, how can you know death?" This is the worldview inherited by Confucius and the Chinese scholar-bureaucrats and scholars who were influenced by him in the past generations.
More than 2,000 years ago, Confucius raised the razor in his hand and shaved off all the "weird powers and chaos" that had nothing to do with daily life. This was a Chinese "Occam's razor" , 1,500 years earlier than the West. The lack of metaphysics
After the influx of Western learning, many New Confucians compared Confucianism with Western religions and believed that the Western Middle Ages were a "god-based" society, with gods as the mainstay and humans as the supplement; accordingly, , ancient China was "humanistic", centered on people and people's lives. Feng Youlan, Xiong Shili, Mou Zhongjian and others all concluded that Confucianism is "the form of Shinto, the stance of humanity, the means of Shinto, and the purpose of humanity."
In the ancient West, during the Justinian period, Eastern Roman historians also jokingly recorded: "People shopping in Constantinople greeted each other like this: one said the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the other replied "the Holy Trinity." In the late ancient world Athens is full of all kinds of statues of gods, so much so that some people lamented that "there are more gods than people in Athens".
On the surface, it seems easy to draw such a conclusion. People are more superstitious and more likely to fall into "weird powers and gods". Under the influence of similar theories such as "religion is the opium of the people", most Chinese people despise religion. Therefore, it is easy to draw the conclusion that ancient Chinese people were more Rationality is also more "smart". However, is this really the case?
First of all, religion is the most basic need for everyone, and it is what people think about life and death, the unknown, and eternity. The inevitable counterpart. Therefore, religion is personal first, and social second. It is not completely tenable to say that religion is the spiritual opium of the ruling class; religion is actually the appearance of the deepest world view of the human spirit. In feedback. After a person becomes a human, he/she not only has the most basic material needs such as eating, drinking, and eating, but also has inner spiritual needs. On top of this, people also have endless curiosity and curiosity. Desire for exploration. In the early days of human history, before science was born, metaphysical thinking was the best way for people to express their curiosity.
In the eyes of many Chinese, "metaphysical" means rigidity. This is probably a problem caused by a translation error: in the 18th and 19th centuries, this philosophical-physical school was once popular in Europe: mechanical materialism, whose original Spanish text is mechanical materialism. Mechanical materialism. In China, it is often translated as metaphysical materialism. The original Spanish text of metaphysics is Metaphisics, which means before physics. In the Greek context, it refers to the "ungrounded" ultimate knowledge.
In ancient Greece, metaphysics was purely spiritual thinking without any utilitarian component, and therefore could not be "expressed" or "acted" in practice. Perhaps because of this, the Chinese translator extended the term "mechanical and rigid" meaning, and thereby belittle “metaphysics”.
Confucius ignored the phenomena of ghosts and gods and kept them at a respectful distance. On the one hand, people can avoid the temptation of "superstition", but on the other hand, "ghosts, gods" and "life and death" often point to people's deepest spiritual needs and point to It represents an "ineffable" area that requires complex thinking activities to grasp. True metaphysics
Starting from Thales, the ancient Greeks, like other peoples, lamented the origin of human beings and the world. The difference is that after that, they did not "ignore" it, but conducted diligent and thorough questioning and exploration. They were not satisfied with the explanation of a certain "authoritative classic" like the ancient Chinese. In ancient China, people regarded the Book of Changes as their guide and used the contents in the Book of Changes to explain the universe and the world. Yin and Yang, the Five Elements, Prophecies, Hetu and Luoshu, etc., were all created from the combination of the Book of Changes and traditional folk customs.
You may ask, what is the point of pursuing these questions diligently? First, cultivate pure abilities, that is, not to be fettered by worldly affairs, not to be diverted by material interests, pure thinking, pure enjoyment; second, philosophical issues about origin, life and death are very complex and prone to ambiguity. There are two ways to solve the problem: one is to believe the authoritative statement and stop thinking about it; the other is to use logical, rigorous and careful thinking to give a thinking paradigm.
This is what Socrates did. He did not give the answer, or even his own thinking, but guided the other party to logically think about it and constantly refined the thinking process; On this basis, Plato introduced geometry. In his view, when thinking about metaphysical issues, what is most needed is the same precision as studying geometry. He also gave his own model of the universe. At that time, it could not but be said that it was the most comprehensive way of thinking. , the most logical explanation; however, it didn’t take long before Aristotle, Plato’s direct disciple, stepped forward to “slap” his mentor in the face. Aristotle did not recognize the spiritual origin, but introduced a more material "first mover". However, what really puts Aristotle on par with his mentor is not the introduction of a "concept" but the introduction of a procedural method of philosophical thinking. He summarized the previous Greek linguists, rhetoricians and philosophers. The research results and the use of genius provide universal research methods for later generations of thinkers. He created formal logic, a powerful tool that anyone can use to conduct rational deductions and debates.
Of course, Greek philosophy had already begun to study ethics in the era of the Sophists and Socrates, but their research on ethics, society, and daily life also needed to follow strict logical deductions. For example, Plato's dialogues are filled with in-depth discussions on basic ethical issues such as courage, honesty, and virtue. Later, Plato introduced the "idea" model, which brought these seemingly vague adjectives into the realm of metaphysics and treated them equally seriously.
What is the driving force behind the development of Greek and Western philosophy? No doubt driven by curiosity about metaphysical questions. Imagine if the Greeks only cared about eating, drinking, and eating that they could see in front of them, they only cared about their daily lives, and they were only satisfied with superficial, superficial, and vague explanations of these issues. It is no exaggeration to say that , the Greeks would never be able to create philosophy and everything related to it as the source of Western civilization, and of course, science would be out of the question. Summary
The reason why I wrote the title: The difference between China and the West. This is because China cannot represent the entire East on this issue. In fact, India and the civilization it affects also attach great importance to metaphysical issues. Xuanzang of the Tang Dynasty described the Indians in his Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty as follows: "Excellent in thinking in the spiritual realm." In contrast, Xuanzang commented on the fellow countrymen of the Eastern Tang Dynasty: "Knowing literature and observing etiquette, and knowing how to abide by the rules" (free translation) ). Xuanzang is indeed a master of his generation, and his comments are to the point.
However, unlike the West, the metaphysics of the "Indian School" is almost complete mysticism, that is to say, it excessively pursues the field of spiritual experience and ignores rational deconstruction and reanalysis. For example, Indians pay more attention to meditation, sacrifices and other mystical experiences, and then describe them. For Indians, mystical experiences are more personal and do not need to be written down and widely publicized. Therefore, the secrets of Brahman are all passed down orally. Instead of writing. The ascetics who rose up against the Brahmins carried out a "reaction" against this, and the disciples of the Buddha specially left a large number of Pali scriptures to "popularize the Dharma".
Some people may ask, China has Taoism - Taoism is responsible for "metaphysical" academic research, but in fact, there is no systematic and rigorous research on either Taoism or Taoism. As mentioned above, Taoism and Taoism The cosmology it relies on mainly comes from the Book of Changes, which is why it is called the "Book of Heaven" and covers all aspects from the universe to life. With the "final conclusion" of the Book of Changes.
In addition, before the introduction of Buddhism, the metaphysical level of Taoism still remained at the level of witchcraft, which was similar to that of shamanism.
In this way, it is easy to explain the so-called Western emphasis on "Shinto" in Neo-Confucianism and the emphasis on "Humanity" in China: China is based on the patriarchal system, with complex etiquette and rules. Ethics replaces religion and metaphysics as external manifestations. In the Chinese environment, people seem to have lost the need to explore metaphysics. As long as they maintain the ethical principles of monarch, minister, father, son and husband and wife, they are "submissive to nature and people" and will naturally be protected by "God".
In the West, Occam's razor "shaves off" the metaphysical system that has become extremely developed due to long-term development, in which the seeds of science have been gestated before. Confucius' "Occam's razor" directly "shaves" the "superfluous and useless" thinking and directly turns to Chinese-style pragmatism. As a result, Western and Chinese ideas parted ways from the source.