The clouds in the sky became thicker and the sun dimmed. I don't know when a breeze started, and it was not as hot as before.

Wang Xiaolie looked up at the sky and then at the people below. He said: "What I'm going to talk about might be a bit boring. I've been thinking about it for a long time and I think it's better to talk about it. You'd better write it down and think about it later. I

It may be correct, or it may not be correct, and you need to participate.”

"The Tao Te Ching says at the beginning that Tao can be Tao, but it is not Tao; names can be named, but they are not very famous. There are many interpretations of this sentence, and I don't know which one is correct. I don't know why Lao Tzu said this sentence.

What did I think at that time, and what does it originally mean. I will only talk about my own understanding, and you can refer to it. Tao encompasses everything, and when we are born in heaven and earth, we are naturally within the scope of Tao. This raises a question, can we

Know the Tao.”

"I think it should be said that we can know Tao, but we cannot fully know Tao. Our understanding of Tao is always partial. This point may not seem important, but it is actually very important. From this we can know our understanding of the world and the universe.

Our understanding is incorrect, at least incomplete. We speculate on the whole based on what we have already known, including those that we have not recognized, and it will never be consistent with the facts. What we think is right, from the perspective of Tao,

They are all wrong. When we do things, we must be very clear about this. Don't think that there is nothing in the world that you don't know just because you know a little bit of knowledge, and that you are omniscient and omnipotent."

"In the process of understanding the world, we have given it many names. For example, there is the sky above, the earth below, and there are mountains, rivers, plains, and so on. It must be very clear that these names are

The names given by people are not inherent in heaven and earth. We must also be very clear that the knowledge and laws summarized by these names come from people, not from heaven and earth."

The distinction between name and reality is a famous issue in Chinese thought. For example, a white horse is not a horse, which is a famous example of Gongsun Long. Li Jianbai, which Wang Xiaolie likes to talk about most, is another example.

This problem is one of the core of human understanding of the world. Two thousand years later, it has not been solved. Famous scholars are by no means a sophistry as some people understand. In the words of later generations, this is the fundamental problem of philosophy. Therefore, people of later generations

The annotations of these people's works will give people a strange feeling. Some people are okay, and some philosophers like to add simple qualifiers of certainism to them. In the eyes of those who add qualifiers,

To put it this way, it means that ancient China also had this kind of thought, which is a kind of praise. But in fact, in the eyes of readers, the people who add the qualifier feel that they are superior to these people, which makes people feel ridiculous.

Chinese thought has rarely made great progress since the Yuan Dynasty. The theory of mind proposed by Wang Yangming in the Ming Dynasty lacked the pioneering nature of previous knowledge and was not widely circulated. However, the ideas of Huang Zongxi, Wang Fuzhi and others have been spread to a smaller extent. etc.

By the Qing Dynasty, thousands of horses were in silence.

In this situation, when facing the Western invasion in the late Qing Dynasty, Chinese culture was in a very bad state to learn Western culture. The result was that Western culture was not learned very proficiently, and China's own culture was abandoned.

In the natural sciences, this kind of thing is very obvious, and everyone is not surprised. For example, Newton's law of gravity, and later the more accurate theory of relativity. What happened after the theory of relativity? People have not found it out yet. But in the social sciences, many people

I can't get out. When talking about humanistic issues, I like to talk about Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Kant. Some people also like to talk about more niche philosophers because they think it's very stylish. To be honest, this

Most of them just pretend to understand if they don’t understand.

Different civilizations have different views on the world and different views on human beings. This is normal. Thinking that people in the world are all the same and should have a common past, common present and common future cannot be counted in the first place.

correct.

Wang Xiaolie thought about this question for a long time. Now that he spoke it, he felt that he had a lot to say. But when he opened his mouth, he felt that there was nothing to say. He looked at everyone and was silent for a while.

"We have given many names to the affairs of this world, and these names need to be defined. If the affairs referred to by these names already exist in the world, then the definitions should be precise. But in fact, where is the precise definition?

Giving a name originally just means that this world is different from that there, this thing is different from that thing, this thing is different from that thing. Of course there should be a definition, and the reference should also be clear. For example, Mount Tai is different from Mount Hua.

It is different from Songshan Mountain, there is no doubt about it. But where is the boundary of a mountain is a big problem. From a distance, we know it is Mount Tai, but where the boundary of Mount Tai is, we cannot accurately draw it.

You know, what we look like is called human beings. But what does it mean to be human? I can’t explain clearly.”

"I call this problem "Degree but No Boundary". Only with degrees can we separate this matter from other matters and give it a name. But this name has no clear boundaries. All the boundaries are artificially drawn. Moreover,

It means artificially drawing a clear boundary, but this boundary is not clear and will always be broken by new discoveries. If you understand this, you will avoid making mistakes in many things."

The fact that the boundaries are not clear and easy to be breached has a very vivid name in later generations, slicing sausages. If you draw a boundary for something, the enemy will always harass you near the boundary. Over time, the boundary will become clear.

Real death.

This is the essential characteristic of the world. No one is cunning or honest. Clear boundaries should not be drawn.

"In order to understand the world, in order to be able to describe the world we know, people have to give many names. By connecting the names one by one, adding causes, processes, results, and some other content, it becomes knowledge. We must remember that these

Knowledge is man-made by human beings based on their own understanding. Neither names nor knowledge are generated by heaven and earth, and they are not the content of Tao. We are under the Tao of Heaven, and these names and knowledge are just a way for us to understand the world.

It is not the way of heaven itself. How can we understand the way of heaven with these names and knowledge? According to Buddhist teachings, it is enlightenment. According to our Han teachings, it is called experience. Although what I hear is one, I feel two in my heart."

"Under the way of heaven, what we want to get is the Tao. Names and knowledge are just means. Don't be obsessed with means and forget the roots. Officials who govern the people should not be obsessed with laws and regulations, but should always remember the people."

One of the characteristics of Western civilization is that there is no Tao, and they do not pay attention to Tao. In their place, God replaces Tao, their omnipotent Lord. Before the Lord, they believe that there is a reason composed of the knowledge of names.

world.

Some people have learned some philosophical knowledge and like to talk about the rational world. Some people even say that this is the reason why Western civilization is stronger than Chinese civilization. This is incorrect. It is just that the two civilizations have different understandings of the world.

Western civilization, whether it is natural science or humanities, attaches great importance to concepts and the definition of concepts.

For example, in natural sciences, we need to define living and non-living things, and in biology, we need to define animals and plants. Later, we find that there are some that are neither animals nor plants, and add a microorganism. If we find more later, continue to add, continue

definition.

For example, in social sciences, we must first define human beings. No matter how clear the definition is, or how scientific the definition is, in fact, there are either non-human creatures that are human by definition, or there are creatures that are clearly human but are not human by definition.
Chapter completed!