G: inference; To: I see. Explore the principles of things and gain wisdom (or some experience) from them.
From Ceng Zi's "Great Learning" during the Warring States Period: If you want to be right, be sincere first; Be sincere, let him know first; Knowledge exists in things. The content is known, and the knowledge is sincere.
Translation meaning: people who want to correct their thoughts must first make their thoughts sincere; People who want to make their ideas sincere must first acquire knowledge; The way to acquire knowledge is to explore things.
Extended data
Knowing from things is an important concept in China's ancient Confucianism, and it is a Confucian theory that specializes in studying things, which has been lost. Only this passage in "Da Xue" mentioned "learning from things", but it didn't give any explanation afterwards, and there were no references to such words as "learning from things" and "learning from things" in the ancient books of pre-Qin dynasty, which made the true meaning of "learning from things" a mystery of Confucianism.
The debate on knowing and doing everything has been debated for more than a thousand years, from Zheng Xuan in the Eastern Han Dynasty, who first annotated "Da Xue", to modern Confucian scholars, and it is still inconclusive.
The sixth edition of Modern Chinese Dictionary published on 20 12 interprets "knowing knowledge by studying things" as "studying the principles of things to acquire knowledge."
Baidu Encyclopedia-Understanding Knowledge from Things
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