First of all, the questions raised
The word "humanity" has become a highly used concept today, but it is very difficult to say clearly what is humanity. Understanding the humanities is not only a subject classification problem, but also a problem of constructing and standardizing the academic thinking space. In this way, it has become a question of modern philosophical thinking, because only philosophy can undertake the task of constructing, deconstructing, developing and transforming the thinking space of various disciplines.
In the past century, western philosophers, especially a group of German philosophers, have conducted in-depth discussions on this issue step by step. Dilthey first discussed the difference between humanities and natural science, and thought that natural science is a science to study the "dead" natural world, while humanities is a science to study the "living" spiritual world. Rickett followed the difference between cultural science and natural science, thinking that natural science is the knowledge of exploring the natural world unrelated to "value", while cultural science is the knowledge of exploring the cultural world related to "value". Husserl advocates that humanities and natural sciences are different in attitudes and methods, and thinks that only by abandoning the attitudes and methods of natural sciences and adopting phenomenological attitudes and methods can we understand people's "life world"; Cassirer pointed out that the unique cognitive ideal of humanities lies neither in exploring the universality of laws nor in understanding the individuality of facts and phenomena, but in grasping "human nature". On the surface, these discussions are classified; From a deeper level, it is to construct a brand-new way of thinking different from modern natural science through the establishment of humanities, and realize the transformation of human thinking mode from modern form to modern form.
In China, the discussion on this issue can be traced back to the "Debate on Science and Metaphysics" in the early 1920s. In the debate, Zhang Junmai put forward five major differences between "science" and "outlook on life", holding that "science" is characterized by objectivity, attaching importance to formal logic, proceeding from analytical methods, being dominated by causality, and proceeding from the same phenomenon of objects; The characteristics of "outlook on life" are that it is subjective, attaches importance to intuition, emphasizes comprehensive methods, advocates free will, and starts from the oneness of personality. These five differences have actually involved the demarcation of natural science and humanities. However, due to complicated reasons, this discussion has not been carried out in depth. This makes Chinese academic circles only look at the difference between natural science and humanities from the subject classification for a long time, but do not understand the significance of humanities in changing human thinking mode.
Moreover, there seems to be a special difficulty in understanding the humanities in China, that is, the two concepts of "humanities" and "social science" have been confused for a long time. For example, in the authoritative dictionary Cihai (1979 edition), the definitions of humanities and social sciences are roughly the same in connotation and extension. The "humanities" entry in the book says:
Humanities ... in a narrow sense refers to the study of Latin, Greek and classical literature. In a broad sense, it generally refers to the study of social phenomena and culture and art, including philosophy, economics, politics, history, law, literature and art, ethics, linguistics and so on.
The "social science" entry in the book says:
Social science is the study of social phenomena. Such as politics, economics, military science, law, education, literature and art, history, linguistics, ethnology, religion, sociology and so on. Its task is to study and expound various social phenomena and their development laws.
Both of these entries take the study of "social phenomena" as their connotation, and economics, politics, history, law, literature and art, and linguistics as their extensions. In fact, humanities and social sciences are regarded as almost the same concept. This situation makes it difficult to distinguish between humanities and social sciences.
Just like this, it is necessary to have a new understanding and recognition of "humanity" today. This is of great significance to the development and standardization of the thinking space of humanities and the survival and development of humanities in today's era. This paper attempts to explain what the humanities is by discussing its disciplinary status, basic tasks and constituent elements.
Second, the discipline orientation of humanities
To explain what the humanities are, first of all, there is a problem of distinguishing humanities from natural science and social science. This is also the discipline orientation of humanities.
For the distinction between humanities, natural sciences and social sciences, previous researchers started with their respective research objects and divided the boundaries through different research objects. Dilthey's distinction between humanities and natural sciences, Richter's distinction between cultural sciences and natural sciences, and Zhang Junmai's distinction between science and outlook on life generally follow this line of thinking. However, with the development of science in the past hundred years, the research objects of these disciplines tend to be blurred gradually, and this idea is difficult to continue to use today. In view of this situation, the author advocates to distinguish humanities from natural science and social science by investigating the relationship between humanities and natural science and social science in the research object. From the research object, whether it is humanities, social sciences or natural sciences, there is a * * * similarity-they all study "people". The study of "people" constitutes the connection between the three in the research object. This connection, on the one hand, blurs the research object between them, on the other hand, it also finds a new starting point for the demarcation between them.
Then let's look at people first.
People are alive. However, the existence of human life is different from other organic substances and has its own characteristics. The existence of human life has two attributes: one is natural life, which is owned by all living things; The other is cultural life, which is unique to people. The existence of human life is different from other creatures because people have cultural life. Cultural life defines human nature, gives meaning to the life and death of human natural life, and also determines the creation and development of human cultural world. People's life activities to create a cultural world are manifested in two aspects: First, the relationship between man and nature. There are essential differences between humans and animals in their connection with nature. The connection between animals and nature, whether adapting to nature or changing nature, is direct, without intermediary, consciousness and purpose. The connection between man and nature is indirect, realized through the intermediary of the cultural world, and conscious and purposeful. For example, animals get food directly, while people create a cultural world between themselves and nature in order to get food: agriculture, fishery, animal husbandry and food industry have been established and developed. Now, new crop varieties are cultivated in space by using space technology, and attention is paid to protecting the ecological environment to ensure the sustainable growth of food and improve the quality of food. It is through culture that people gradually expand their activities, gradually transform nature into an object world, and transform comfortable things into things that belong to me. With the development of human culture today, the relationship between man and nature has expanded from ancient narrow geographical contact to global contact, and even to the world outside the earth. The other is the connection between people and society. People are "social animals" and always live in certain social relations. And this kind of social connection and social organization is established and developed by the human cultural world. Without human cultural world, language, symbols, will, ideals and traditions, it is impossible to establish and develop such social ties and social organizations. With the development of the cultural world, human society has also developed. Especially in modern times, with the rise and development of capitalist culture, capitalist economic and political relations have been established, developed and improved, and extended to the whole world through violent and peaceful means. All backward ethnic groups are open to the outside world, and the contacts between people, ethnic groups and countries are getting closer and more complicated. Today, this connection has developed into a global movement. In social communication and social organization, it is not only manifested in the complex relations of various classes, strata and political groups, but also in the complex relations of various ethnic groups, regional organizations and religious groups. Now it can be said that without understanding culture, it is impossible to solve various social contradictions and social problems today. Therefore, people are not so much "social animals" as "cultural animals".
The study of human life existence and life activities can start from different fields, different perspectives and different purposes, thus producing different disciplines.
First of all, we can distinguish between people's natural life and people's cultural life, and the relationship between people and nature and between people and society. The study of man's natural life and the relationship between man and nature has formed natural science (the result of the application of natural science and the extension of technical science); Studying people's cultural life and the relationship between people and society has formed humanities and social sciences. Such as physiology, psychology, brain science, human science and physical anthropology, these studies on human knowledge are the study of human natural life, so they belong to natural science, not humanities and social sciences.
Look at the difference between humanities and social sciences. Studying people's cultural life is different from studying the relationship between people and society. The former discusses the essence of human life existence and life activities, that is, human nature; The latter discusses the performance of human life activities in different aspects of the relationship between people and society, that is, human behavior. The discussion of the former formed the humanities; The discussion of the latter has formed a social science.
The existence and activities of human cultural life have different ways, such as language, poetry, art and history. Study them separately to form linguistics, literature, literature and art, and history. The task of philosophy is to reflect on the existence of human cultural life itself. This constitutes all branches of the humanities.
The relationship between people and society also has different ways, such as economy, politics, law, education, nationality and religion. The study of them has formed economics, politics, law, education, ethnology and religion. A comprehensive investigation of the relationship between man and society has formed sociology. The relationship between human cultural life and social behavior is empirically studied to form cultural anthropology. This constitutes all branches of social science.
Through the above investigation, the relationship between natural science, social science and humanities and their respective research fields are clarified, thus determining the disciplinary status of humanities. It can be clearly seen that humanities are not only different from natural sciences, but also do not overlap with social sciences in connotation and extension. As The Concise Encyclopedia of Britain said, "Humanities is the sum of disciplines that are neither natural nor social sciences."
Third, the basic tasks of the humanities
Humanities not only study the existence and activities of human cultural life, but also form a basic task different from natural science and social science. These basic tasks can be summarized as follows: (1) Exploring human nature; (2) establishing a value system; (3) shaping the spiritual home. It is on these basic tasks that the humanities further shows its own characteristics.
(A) to explore human nature
This paper points out that people's cultural life determines their essence. The humanities take people's cultural life as the research object, that is, to explore people's essence. The humanities can be said to be "human studies" to explore human nature. The so-called "anthropology" is the study of people's cultural life.
Characterized by "human studies", it is the * * * similarity of all branches of humanities. All branches of humanities are thinking and discussing people's cultural life and humanity from different levels and different perspectives. Philosophy, literature and history are often called "human studies". As Cahill said: "History and poetry are a research method for us to know ourselves and an indispensable tool for building our human world." Even linguistics is actually an exploration of human nature. Language is closely related to the formation and development of human beings. Language is not only the shell of human thinking, but also the way of human existence in essence. In the words of British linguist Palmer, "language faithfully reflects the whole history and culture of a nation, its various games and entertainments, beliefs and prejudices". The development of human cultural world is manifested in the turn of language and the reconstruction of discourse system. Therefore, the reality of linguistic research is human existence, human cultural world and human essence.
This discussion about human nature is beyond the capabilities of natural science and social science. Although both natural science and social science study people, natural science explores people's natural life and the relationship between man and nature, not human nature. Social science is about the relationship between people and society, and it is human behavior, not human nature. Exploring human nature can only be undertaken by humanities.
(B) the establishment of the value system
The existence of human life is different from that of animals because of its cultural life. Firstly, this difference lies in that because culture takes value as the axis, people have value orientation and ideal pursuit, while animals have no value orientation and ideal pursuit.
The humanities study people's cultural life and explore people's essence, which lies in revealing the value orientation and ideal pursuit with historical rationality, criticizing and deconstructing the outdated value system in the past, and establishing a national value system in a certain era, that is, a new value system that embodies the spirit of the times and the national spirit. Literature, history and philosophy all shoulder this task in their own ways.
Ancient humanists in China paid attention to this task of humanities. Confucius said when sorting out the Book of Songs: "The Book of Songs is 300. In a word, it says' thinking naively'. In his view, the function of The Book of Songs is not only to preserve ancient poetry, but also to embody Confucian values. Therefore, Confucius attached great importance to the role of the Book of Songs, saying, "The Book of Songs can be appreciated, observed, grouped and resented." "If you don't study poetry, there is nothing to say." Thus, The Book of Songs became a Confucian classic, which lasted for two thousand years. When discussing the purpose of writing historical records, Sima Qian said: "Every 130 articles also want to borrow the changes of ancient and modern times and become a family statement. "The so-called" one's words "is to establish a set of value systems that evaluate the ancients and standardize the newcomers.
This work is difficult for natural science and social science to complete. Obviously, natural science cannot construct the value system of human beings, although some major natural science discoveries and the emergence of new theories and doctrines will have an important impact on the value system. For example, whether the research on "cloning" should be extended to the discussion of human beings is a typical example of natural science's insensitivity to value choice. Every branch of social science involves the problem of value orientation and ideal pursuit, but the establishment of this orientation standard and pursuit goal cannot be solved by economics, politics and sociology itself, but must rely on the value system established by humanities. For example, the relationship between "fairness" and "efficiency" involved in economics is actually the problem of value orientation and ideal pursuit under the conditions of market economy. Therefore, within the scope of economics itself, it is difficult to explain the relationship between fairness and efficiency; Only through philosophical discussion can we make a more reasonable explanation to this problem step by step.
(C) shaping the spiritual home
Humanism not only establishes a value system, but also shapes people's spiritual world.
The cultural world created by man includes two parts, one is the material world and the other is the spiritual world. These two worlds, * * *, are isomorphic with the cultural world of mankind, and the cultural world is very important for the survival and development of mankind. But what really settles people's cultural life is the spiritual world, even if people can really settle down. The spiritual world is the "home" of human cultural life.
Strictly speaking, both natural science and social science have played a role in shaping people's spiritual world. Some important discoveries in natural science and the establishment of new theories will have a great influence on the shaping of human spiritual world. For example, a hundred years ago, Yan Fu introduced and advocated Darwin's theory of biological evolution, emphasizing "natural selection, survival of the fittest", arousing Chinese people to save the country, which played a great role in shaping the spiritual world of China people. In social science, the presentation of economic theory, the perfection of legal theory and the development of educational science have much greater influence on people's spiritual world. However, the values and value system that play a leading role in the spiritual world cannot be established by natural science and social science, and only the humanities can be established.
Besides humanities, religion can also shape people's spiritual world in this way. Especially in today's world after the end of the Cold War, the role of religion is particularly prominent. Although both humanity and religion can shape people's spiritual world, the basic spirit and methods are different. Basically speaking, the humanities is the opposite product of religious theology, which shifts the foundation of the value system from the world of God to the world of man. The humanities do not take God and God as the highest principles, while religion takes God and God as the highest principles. Although modern religious theory shows the characteristics of theorization, rationalization and secularization, the basic point of demonstrating the highest principle with God has not changed. Therefore, the human spiritual world shaped by humanity is a world with humanistic spirit; The spiritual world of man shaped by religion is a mysterious world. These two spiritual worlds can make people settle down. But the spiritual world of extreme religious mysticism will lead to the crisis of human existence. The spread of "cults" in the world today is an example. Therefore, humanities plays a more active and important role than religion in shaping people's spiritual world.
From this perspective, only the humanities can provide a real "home" for the precipitation of human spirit. This "home" is not in a distant paradise, but in the real world. This task of the humanities can be expressed in the words of Novalis, a German romantic poet in the18th century: "Philosophy is to look for homes everywhere with an impulse of homesickness." "People must build a world of poetry around themselves and live in it."
The above three basic tasks fully show the characteristics of humanities. This feature, in the words of China philosophers, is "learning for oneself" rather than "learning from things"; In the words of western philosophers, it is "know yourself!"
Fourth, the elements of humanity
Humanities has its special research object and basic task, which is different from natural science and social science. The author thinks that there are four elements in humanities: (1) humanist; (2) humanistic spirit; (3) humanistic methods; (4) Humanistic writing.
(A) Humanities scholars
The reason why humanities scholars become one of the constituent elements of humanities is not only that they are the research subjects of humanities, but also that humanities research has special requirements for the research subjects:
First of all, the humanities are different from natural science and social science, and have quite strong and distinctive personalized characteristics. The so-called personalized characteristics not only refer to the original ideas and achievements of humanities, but also various styles, characteristics and opinions, which are rich and colorful from content to form. Moreover, it refers to the creation and achievements of the humanities, which is full of the cultural life of the humanists who created it and reflects the "self" of the humanists. It is often said that "writing is like a man" and "poetry is like a man" means this, so the "self" of the humanist who created it can be read in both texts and poems. For example, we can read Confucius from The Analects of Confucius, Qu Yuan from Li Sao, Sima Qian from Historical Records, Cao Xueqin from A Dream of Red Mansions and Qian Zhongshu from Fortress Besieged. Behind the formulas and figures of natural science, the "self" of natural scientists is incomprehensible; If you want to understand it, it must be during the investigation of the history of science; The history of science is a branch of history and belongs to the humanities.
Secondly, the exploration of human cultural life by humanities is not a process for researchers to explore and grasp the external object world like natural science and social science, but a process for researchers to experience, feel, understand and interpret human cultural life with their own cultural life, which is a process of mutual communication, mutual understanding and mutual * * *. This puts high demands on humanists, requiring them to have independent personality, noble sentiment, free spirit and sincere feelings for their own nation, country, people and life. Only in this way can we have a profound experience, feeling, understanding and explanation of people's cultural life, and we can have true opinions, true creations and true achievements in humanities. Confucius, Qu Yuan, Sima Qian, Cao Xueqin, and Qian Zhongshu are all such humanists, so they can all leave far-reaching masterpieces. In this sense, we can say that the curriculum of humanities is the "mental journey" of humanities scholars.
Just like this, humanists occupy a very important position in the humanities and are one of the constituent elements of the humanities.
(2) Humanistic spirit
The so-called humanistic spirit, simply put, is to affirm people's cultural life and world in the pursuit of people's values and ideals, emphasize the promotion of people's cultural life and the development of people's cultural world, promote people's progress, development and perfection, and oppose the attribution of people's existence to natural life, as well as to a certain part of people's cultural world (such as science, technology and economy). In other words, humanistic spirit emphasizes that people have their own cultural life and world, which is different from simply attributing people to nature, regardless of people's views (such as extreme naturalism and fascist ethnology), religious spirit based on God, and scientism that exaggerates the role of science unilaterally and economism that simply emphasizes the role of economy.
Humanistic spirit is a historical category. Different historical times, different national cultures, people's cultural life and world are different, and humanistic spirit also has different connotations. For example, China's ancient humanistic spirit first emphasized human consciousness in "the debate between man and bird", "the debate between China and foreign countries" and "the debate between gentleman and villain". For another example, in the modern west, humanistic spirit first emphasizes the liberation of human personality from the oppression of medieval churches and theology. For another example, in today's world, humanistic spirit first emphasizes opposing scientism and economism. In recent years, the discussion on humanistic spirit mainly emphasizes the criticism of scientism and economism.
Although humanistic spirit is a historical category, it is very important for humanities of different times and nationalities. Humanistic spirit is the motive force and soul of humanistic science. The consciousness and pursuit of humanistic spirit contributed to the emergence and development of humanistic science. Only by embodying the humanistic spirit can the humanities be full of vitality, vitality and creativity, and the tasks of exploring human nature, establishing a value system and shaping a spiritual home can be realized. Without humanistic spirit, the humanities will lose its vitality, influence and attraction, and will only become a word game without soul. To be a real humanist and engage in real humanities research, we must have its humanistic spirit as the pillar.
Humanistic spirit is a historical category, which means that the humanistic spirit of a certain era will be lost after this era has passed. It is inevitable that the humanistic spirit of a certain era will be lost with the changes of the times. This loss will inevitably lead to the crisis of humanities scholars and humanities. Facing the crisis, humanists have to shoulder the task of rebuilding humanistic spirit. The reconstruction of humanistic spirit will certainly promote the new and greater development of humanities. Crisis-reconstruction-development-re-crisis-re-reconstruction-re-development is the road to the development of humanistic spirit and humanities. At present, we are in the crisis and reconstruction of China's humanistic spirit.
It should be pointed out that humanistic spirit is not only closely related to humanities, but also closely related to the settlement of people's cultural life and the development of people's cultural world. In the development of social science, natural science and technical science, there is actually a question of whether humanistic spirit is needed. Only in contrast, it is not as prominent and important as the humanities.
(3) Humanistic method
There is no doubt that the study of humanities certainly needs methods. The key is that humanities should have their own special methods. Compared with natural science and social science, the method of humanities has the following characteristics:
First of all, natural science methods and social science methods emphasize demonstration, and believe that only through confirmation or falsification can we gain an understanding of truth. The method of humanism emphasizes non-positivism, and holds that the understanding of truth is mainly obtained through experience and sentiment. Secondly, the natural science method and social science method emphasize that truth is obtained by the subject pointing to and reflecting the object, and the influence of the subject factors is reduced as much as possible (impossible to absolutely reduce) in the process of the subject pointing to and reflecting the object. Only in this way can we get the truth more reliably. The method of humanities emphasizes the understanding of truth through mutual communication, mutual understanding and mutual singing, and emphasizes that only in this kind of communication, understanding and singing can the understanding of truth be more reliable. Third, natural science and social science emphasize expressing their research in a logical way, while humanities advocate expressing their thoughts in various ways, which are both logical and poetic.
It is very important to master the research methods of humanities. Only by using the research methods of humanities can we achieve creative results in the research of humanities.
(4) humanistic writing
The creation of humanities scholars in the field of humanities is preserved in the form of humanistic writings. Generally speaking, there are three conditions for humanistic writing: first, there is a physical carrier (such as bamboo slips, paper, books, tapes, videos, photos, floppy disks, etc.). ), and some content is preserved through word of mouth for a long time, which is a special carrier; Second, there are symbolic records (such as language and words), which represent certain meanings; Third, there are discussions and reflections on human cultural life. Therefore, humanistic writing is a "text".
As a "text" left by humanists, humanistic works are for other humanists and later humanists to interpret. Interpretation of humanities works is a very important content of humanities research, and it is also the difference between humanities and natural science and social science. For example, Tian Wen, written by Qu Yuan, contains both literature and natural science. It is not only a masterpiece of Chu Ci, but also an important document of ancient astronomy and cosmology in China. For today's humanities scholars, Tian Wen is still a must-read; For today's astronomers, "Tian Wen" may have been visited by few people. This shows that the study of humanities is inseparable from the interpretation of humanistic writing.
So, what is the significance of reading humanities works for humanities? Why is it a very important content of humanities research? There are two main points: first, the humanities works retain the creation of humanities scholars and are documents that record the achievements of humanities. Through interpretation, we can read the thinking of predecessors or others, the evolution and tradition of humanities, thus inspiring the reader's own creation; Second, this interpretation itself is a reinterpretation and reconstruction of the original meaning of "text" under new conditions, which is a kind of creation. In reading, readers not only read the past, but also read the present; I read others and myself. In ancient China, from Xie Lao and Yu Lao written by Han Fei to Zi Zhi Tong Jian written by Zhang Zizheng Zhu Meng and Wang Fuzhi at the turn of Ming and Qing Dynasties, they are all classic works to interpret humanism. There are also some reading notes, such as Marx's Historical Notes, Lenin's Philosophical Notes, and Mao Zedong's Review of Twenty-four History, which are all famous notes to interpret humanistic works. Therefore, it can be said that the interpretation of humanistic writings is one of the sources of living water created by humanistic science. For humanists, humanistic writing is not "dead" but "alive", and the key lies in the interpreter himself. An unintelligent reader is often meaningless to read; However, a clever reader can read a lot of great significance from it.
The above four elements further demonstrate the internal structure of the humanities, especially the particularity of the humanities in the way of thinking, which constitutes an important aspect of in-depth understanding of the humanities.