Biography of thinkers
Zhou 1945 was born in Shanghai, 1967 graduated from the Philosophy Department of Peking University, and 1978 was admitted to the Philosophy Department of China Academy of Social Sciences.
Department, 198 1 graduate, now a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He is the author of academic monograph Nietzsche: Nietzsche and Metaphysics at the Turning Point of the Century, Essays on Man and Eternity, Essays on Sorrow and Passion, Essays on Watching Far Away, Respective Pilgrimages, Silence, Kindness, Richness and Nobleness, and documentary Niu Niu: A Father's Notes. A large number of essays have had a wide impact.
I want to share with you the main experience of my life through this topic. What is worth cherishing and pursuing in life? To answer this question, we should first ask a question: What is the most valuable thing in a person? I think there are mainly two, one is life and the other is spirit. People's spiritual attributes can be relatively divided into rationality (mind), emotion (mind) and soul. Happiness and Excellence are the two most worthwhile things in a person's life. My point is that if a person keeps a simple life, he is happy; And if you have a free mind, a rich mind and a noble soul in spirit, it is undoubtedly excellent. Life first, then spirit.
Life should be simple.
Emerson, an American philosopher, once said that infancy is the eternal savior. In order to guide the fallen human beings to return to the kingdom of heaven, it continues to return to the embrace of mankind. I think this sentence is really good!
There is a big problem in this era, that is, many people care more about material things than life, and their values are very single, so making money for individuals has become a top priority. In this case, in fact, we may ignore the needs of life itself from the perspective of life orientation.
In fact, the needs and material desires of life itself are two different things, but now we often confuse the two. This point is emphasized by both Chinese and western philosophers. In China, Taoism, in particular, attaches great importance to protecting the original intact life, which is "all truth" in Taoist words. You should protect your complete and true state of life. "Don't hurt your shape with things" means don't hurt your body with things. This is a point that Taoism attaches great importance to. In the words of Zhuangzi, don't lose your life, this is the original state of your life. So do western philosophers. In ancient Greece, there were basically two views on what happiness was, one called hedonism and the other called perfectionism. The representative figure of hedonism is Epicurus in ancient Greece. He emphasized that happiness means that there is no pain in the body and no turmoil in the soul, that is, your body is healthy and your soul is quiet. This is happiness. Why do people suffer is that desire exceeds the needs of your life itself. It is not necessary for your life, but it has become the main goal of your life. Desire exceeds the needs of life itself, which is the main source of pain. Epicurus believed that the needs of nature could be easily met. After people are born, nature gives you the conditions for survival, but if you go beyond this, it will be different. What is the need of life itself? In my opinion, it can be divided into two parts, one is the demand for external nature, that is, a good natural environment, and the other is the natural demand of people, such as health and safety. There is another point I emphasize very much: love, affection, affection. This is something in the bones of life, and it is the most core and fundamental need.
The happiest time in life is 17 years old. When I first went to college, I suddenly found that there were so many beautiful girls in the world. The world is so beautiful! When I was a father. Of course, my life was quite depressed during that time. My first daughter, diagnosed with congenital cancer at the full moon, only lived for one and a half years. Later, I wrote her a book called Niu Niu: A Father's Notes. But I thank God that he didn't abandon me and let me be a father again. At the beginning of this year, I published a book called Baby, Baby, which is about my second daughter Jojo. I really feel that when you welcome a little life, that kind of happiness is indescribable. When a child is very young, it is actually a small animal, a cub. At that time, you also became an animal and an adult beast. Being a young animal is actually very simple, and it is simple to return to life. I think it is delicious to serve this little body all day long.
So I said, this thing arranged by nature, whether it is love or affection, you should not underestimate it, it is the most important part of life. It not only gives me the greatest happiness, but also gives me great enlightenment. This revelation is that it has purified my life and soul. We usually lead a complicated life. We attach great importance to fame, profit, status, identity, wealth and power, but when you think about it, these things are actually superficial compared with the things in your life itself. Although we need these things for a foothold in society, you should always keep a clear head and what is the most important. You can't live for these things all your life, or you will put the cart before the horse. Emerson, an American philosopher, once said that infancy is the eternal savior. In order to guide the fallen human beings to return to the kingdom of heaven, it continues to return to the embrace of mankind. I think this sentence is really good!
Many people ask me, Miss Zhou, what identity do you value most, philosopher, scholar and writer? I said that I valued my father the most, and I felt that if I didn't be a father, my life would be a lifelong regret. We should cherish the value of ordinary life. In fact, this ordinary life constitutes the eternal core of human life. All extraordinary things will eventually return to ordinary life, and we should measure it with ordinary life. I quite agree with a French philosopher named Montaigne. He said that it is a great achievement in life that a person can live in harmony with his family. As a nation, it is also true for a country. No matter how high your GDP is, if ordinary people can't live a good life and have no sense of dignity and security, then this can't be regarded as the success of national governance.
Some people say that money is the root of all evil. I think this sentence is wrong. Money itself is neutral, a means, depending on how you use it, greed is the root of all evil. How can we treat money with a correct attitude? I summed up four points: the first is to get money by proper means and not be tempted by ill-gotten gains. The second is that after you have wealth, you still have to maintain a detached attitude and treat money as a thing outside your body. The third is to live a simple life after getting rich. Fourth, never take money and wealth as the goal, but as a means to meet your basic life and spiritual needs.
The sublimity of spirit cannot be separated from development.
The purpose of scientific research is to satisfy curiosity, not fame and fortune. This "interest" also includes so-called economic interests. In other words, spiritual life and intellectual life are values themselves, and its value cannot be measured by material gains.
Next, I want to talk about spiritual richness and spiritual richness. Man exists as a spirit, and the spiritual attribute is the characteristic of man. Therefore, from the perspective of human beings, I think it is more important to become a spiritually outstanding person and to grow up well in every spiritual attribute. What is the most important intellectual quality? I think the first thing is curiosity. Plato and Aristotle both said that philosophy begins with doubt. When a person is surprised at the world and confused about life, he begins to think philosophically. Philosophical problems are not forced by a few strange philosophers, but are contained in life itself, and each of us will think when we wake up rationally. I can see this clearly from my daughter. Jojo has been asking questions since she was three or four years old. There are all kinds of problems, some of which are real philosophical problems. For example, when she was four or five years old, she would ask her mother what was behind the cloud. Her mother said there were stars behind the clouds, and then she asked what was behind the stars. Her mother said there was another star behind the star. She said I asked what the last one was, and her mother said there was no last one. At this moment, she turned to ask me. She said, "Dad, how is that possible?" She said, "Look, our roof has a ceiling, so should the sky also have a ceiling? This is one of the four antinomy questions that Kant said are difficult to answer in philosophy-is the world limited or infinite in space? I give this example to show that people are curious. Questions like "Where do we come from, where are we going, and who are we?" are actually reflections of our living difficulties.
Philosophy is actually trying to figure out such a problem. If you really want to know what philosophy is, you should read the works and original works of masters, not textbooks and dogmas. According to its original intention, philosophy is to love wisdom and make you think about the big problems of life and the world. Real philosophical questions often have no answers, but people who think about these questions and those who don't think about them have different ideological realms and different lifestyles. This is the real function of learning philosophy. Einstein said that sacred curiosity is a fragile seedling that can be easily killed. Therefore, everyone should protect their curiosity and develop their interests.
Another important intellectual factor is the ability to think independently. Einstein called the ability to think independently a rare gift from God, which he called inner freedom. When a person has the ability to think independently, he can achieve inner freedom.
So what should schools teach students? I think students' ability to learn happily should be cultivated relative to curiosity; Compared with independent thinking, we should cultivate students' autonomous learning ability. I think it is very important for you to know what your study interests are, and then arrange your study according to your interests. Intellectual activity itself is valuable, and you can't measure its value by matter.
One year, Mr Ding Zhaozhong gave a speech in Nanjing. At that time, an audience asked, "Teacher Ding, what are the economic benefits of your current research project?" Mr. Ding paused and said, "I don't know". He said that in fact, the first Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the inventions of X-rays and electrons, including later atomic physics and quantum mechanics. At first, these projects were considered as the projects with the most money and the least economic benefits, and their so-called economic benefits were later known. Then he said, "In fact, the purpose of scientific research is to satisfy curiosity, not fame and fortune." This "interest" also includes the so-called economic interest. In other words, it is despicable and insignificant for individuals to engage in scientific research for personal fame and fortune; It is also insignificant for a nation to engage in scientific research for the so-called economic interests. In other words, spiritual life and intellectual life are values themselves, and its value cannot be measured by material gains. This is the great tradition of European humanistic spirit including Marx. There is a consistent idea in many works of Marx. He emphasized one point, that is, what is the essential difference between human beings and animals, that is, human beings not only take the initiative to satisfy their own survival, but the essence of human beings lies in free activities. He said: the real kingdom of freedom exists on the other side of the field of material production, that is, the development of human ability as the end itself. The development of ability is an end in itself. God has given you the best thing-mental ability. Let it grow and develop. You can enjoy yourself and your spiritual attributes from the development of this ability. This is the ending itself, so that everyone can do it. This is an ideal society.
So I said, in school, it is very important to develop a hobby of intellectual activities, like intellectual activities and taste the happiness of intellectual activities. Learning itself is fun. What is an intellectual? Intellectuals don't mean to have a university degree or a doctor's or master's degree. I think whether a person is an intellectual or not depends on whether he has really tasted the happiness of intellectual activities. Since then, he has developed the habit of intellectual activities, which will never be changed. If you don't let him engage in intellectual activities, let him use his brain and let him study, he will feel uncomfortable. Such people are called intellectuals. He really loved it, but he really tasted happiness, so he formed this habit, which I think is the most important. This is the ability to learn happily, and then on this basis, you should teach yourself and control your own learning. When you are the master of learning, I call it the ability of autonomous learning. I think all successful people are actually self-learners. Really efficient learning must be self-study, which is arranged by yourself. You study according to your own interests and control your own study. This is the most efficient study.
Everyone must remember this and be the master of learning. First of all, you should be interested in learning, and then you should know your own interests and arrange your own study. The British philosopher Whitehead once said, what is education? Education is waiting for you to forget what you learned in class and what you recited in the exam, and the rest is education. If you forget all the exams you took in class and there is nothing left, you are either uneducated or educated for nothing. What's left? This is a habit of intellectual activity. In Whitehead's words, it is "a habit of intellectual activity that blends into your flesh and blood." This thing is the most fundamental. Whitehead also said that knowledge is not easy to forget, and it is easy to find if you want to use it. So what do you spend all your energy on? Einstein also said that the purpose of education is not knowledge or training experts. I understand that education and being a man are the same thing, that is, what you think is the most valuable thing in life, so education should lay the foundation for this thing, that is, to be a person with developed spiritual attributes and excellent spirit, which is the purpose of education.
Intrinsic enrichment comes from the edification of reading.
One should start from one's own temperament, and don't take utility too seriously. The first goal in life should be Excellence, not success, and success should be regarded as a by-product. First, make yourself an excellent person. In this way, even if you don't succeed, your life is meaningful and your heart is full.
Finally, I want to say that people are not only intelligent animals, but also emotional animals. I understand this emotion as a generalized emotion, a spiritual life, an inner life and a feeling ability. People have the ability to know and feel. Cognitive ability is aimed at the world, or at things, to know a thing. Then people still have the ability to feel, and the ability to feel is often to face the meaning of things to their own lives, so you will be touched, and there will be joy, sadness, sorrow and joy in your heart. You are emotionally involved, so this kind of thing is the ability to feel. If you only develop your intelligence, then you are just a thinking machine. People should also be full of humanity and have a rich inner life. Whether a person's inner life is rich or not is really different. In fact, I think a person looks at the world according to the richness of his heart. Some people are poor at heart, and the world he sees is absolutely poor. If he has only one utilitarian purpose, then he can only look at the world with utilitarian eyes and can't see the beautiful and rich things in the world. Tagore once said, he said: If I hadn't heard those fairy tales when I was a child, if I hadn't seen Arabian Nights and Robinson Crusoe, then the world in my eyes wouldn't be as beautiful as it is now. This shows that people's inner richness is nurtured.
No matter what major we study, if you really want to live as a person, a person with spiritual attributes and inner life, then I emphasize that you must develop the habit of reading. When I say reading, I don't just mean reading professional books, but reading books on humanities, especially classic works on humanities, literature, history and philosophy. We should read more of these books. No matter what major you major in, you should have such humanistic qualities, for the enrichment of your heart and for you to really live in a richer world, not just a utilitarian world.
About reading, my opinion is, firstly, read more books, watch less TV and surf the Internet. Books are different from the Internet. The most precious and important spiritual wealth of mankind is preserved in the form of books. Although many books have become documents on the Internet now, few people go online to read those classic works, which are basically gossip or chatting, and the worst thing is playing games. I really appreciate a comparison between TV and books made by Pozmann, an American cultural communicator in 1970s and 1980s. Pozmann said that television has two characteristics, one is to pursue the rapidity and novelty of information, and the other is to express it with images. On the contrary, books do not pursue quickness and novelty, and books have a long tradition. In addition, books are expressed in words, and words are abstract symbols. To understand abstract symbols, you must think. So, he said, in fact, people are becoming more and more savage and uneducated through TV. I think his warning is reasonable.
Second, what to read? Read more famous books, less or no best sellers. What is a bestseller? I think there is a very good definition, that is, a book that everyone is talking about today and no one pays attention to a year later is a best seller. It's all fast food This is a thing of the past. What are you wasting your time on this?
Third, I emphasize reading the original, not those second-hand and third-hand materials. You have to read The Analects of Confucius. It's not just about "feeling" and "experience". You don't know Confucius after reading these. The same is true of learning philosophy. To read the original works of philosophers, I really don't know what philosophy is until I read the original works. I didn't know what philosophy was until I read Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. You don't know what philosophy is just by reading textbooks. There was a philosopher named Christopher in ancient Greece. He once said: Some people are strange. They like philosophy, but they don't read the original works of philosophers, but those explanatory works. It's like a man who falls in love with the hostess but is afraid of trouble and woos the maid. Isn't that ridiculous? But now there are so many people who have sex with maids that they dare not have sex with the hostess. Actually, the hostess may be more approachable than the maid.
Besides developing the habit of reading, I suggest developing the habit of keeping a diary. In fact, everyone who can write should keep a diary. I really think that what a person can really keep is nothing to say. Life is always passing by, but you have to keep it in some way and turn it into your inner wealth.
Some people think that reading humanities works is the business of humanities scholars, and writing seems to be the business of writers. I think this is actually a big misunderstanding. In my opinion, reading and writing belong to everyone who cares about spiritual life and should be unprofessional. Tolstoy said: the professionalization of writing is the root of literary degeneration. I think it's quite right.
I think, one should start from one's own temperament and don't take utility too seriously. The first goal in life should be Excellence, not success, and success should be regarded as a by-product. First, make yourself an excellent person. In this way, even if you don't succeed, your life is meaningful and your heart is full. In an open era like ours, as long as you really become an excellent person, I think there is always a chance of success. And once successful, it is a real success, a connotative success, not a superficial success.