A Letter to First-Year Philosophy Students

Finally, let me talk about my own method for writing papers. Since I’ve only just finished my second year, and aside from the fact that I’ve just written an 80,000-character paper, which is a bit scary, I can hardly claim to be adept at writing; listening to teachers’ guidance on paper writing is even more helpful. What I say below is only meant as “reference” (what I said above about academic ethics, by contrast, was a “warning”). The most important stage of my paper-writing process is the initial preparation stage, and this stage consists of reading books—finding books related to the topic of the paper and reading them one by one. The task during this period is to broaden one’s thinking, accumulate materials, and sketch out the paper’s outline. When reading, there is no need to bite through every book from beginning to end line by line. Although “read straight through from beginning to end” is Mr. Qian Mu’s admonition, and although I also greatly admire Mr. Qian Mu’s approach to scholarship, the current situation is that there are too many worthwhile books and I have too little time, so I have to be a bit flexible: read for the main points, skim or skip around, and only read carefully when one encounters especially fine passages or passages closely related to one’s own paper, because for us undergraduates, who are just starting out and have almost no accumulation, every extra book we read can open up a bit more of our thinking. We do not yet have the ability to study and analyze philosophical works in depth, and the books placed before us are not there for us to do research with, but to inspire us; reading a little faster and a little more roughly can still yield gains. Of course, this is only my personal view. If you want to cultivate good reading habits as early as possible, then follow Mr. Qian Mu’s teaching and insist on reading every book from beginning to end; perhaps that would be better. When reading, I use loose sheets of paper as bookmarks and carry a pen with me, recording at any time good sentences, good passages, and my own random thoughts and impressions as I encounter them. Of course, if the book is your own, you can also simply circle and underline in it, but I suggest that everyone not take this convenience as the goal; copying things out once will bring you more benefit than simply drawing a line under them. Even good phrases found on the Internet are worth copying out once by hand with paper and pen, and try to avoid using Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. Copying it once on paper and then typing it into the computer does seem somewhat redundant, but on the one hand you will end up with a thick stack of reading notes and feel a great sense of accomplishment; on the other hand, it deepens your impression of the notes, and it also makes it less easy to develop the habit of casually plagiarizing other people’s articles, because even if you do want to plagiarize, you still have to copy it out by hand and type it in twice yourself… Once you have finished reading the reference books and accumulated a certain amount of reading notes, while entering the notes into the computer, you can further arrange the outline of the paper. If the paper is long and there are many subtopics under the main theme, then at this point you can reorganize the reading notes according to the relevant subtopics; then, when writing the paper, you will be able to follow this path all the way down very smoothly. In short, I emphasize that the key to writing still lies in reading.

C. Courses

Peking University’s course-selection system is extremely special. Such a free and rich way of selecting courses is extremely rare among universities across the country, but this system also does indeed trouble many students, especially the newly added item of “willingness value” introduced starting last semester, which has drawn a lot of complaints from some students. However, I think there is no need to explain that course-selection system any further, because the more one explains, the more likely one is to make a problem that was originally simple and clear become more complicated. From my observation, the explanations of this system in the announcements issued by the university and in the handbooks distributed are already sufficiently detailed. Since everyone managed to get into Peking University, they surely do not lack this level of comprehension; what is lacking in most cases is merely the patience to search for information in those announcements and handbooks and to apply a little logical thought. If there are technical issues in course selection that are unclear, I hope everyone will try to think them through on their own. You can also ask classmates or ask me. If you ask me to write about course selection without a specific problem in hand, I don’t think I could write anything more detailed than the handbook.

Among Peking University’s various departments, the philosophy department’s course selection is the most special. There are extremely few fixed required major courses; most of the courses are electives—what does “type elective” mean? In fact, it means that among a large number of courses of a certain type, you only need to choose enough credits to meet the specified amount, and there is no requirement as to exactly which courses you choose. The credit floors of these different types of courses add up to the so-called “major required” courses, while the remaining so-called “major elective” courses actually have the same range of choices as the “major required” ones. For example, if the credits you choose in a certain category exceed the required floor, the excess is counted as “major elective” credits. Questions about philosophy major courses will naturally become clearer once you reach the second year, have been assigned an advisor, and come to understand the philosophy department better.

Speaking of advisors, the selection process begins in the latter half of the second semester, can be changed in the third semester (the first semester of sophomore year), and is finally settled in the second semester of the sophomore year. The advisor’s role is to guide your everyday reading, writing, and course selection, and he or she is also the recipient of your future year paper. On the other hand, don’t expect a busy advisor to give you too much attention. I’ve only just advanced to the second year, so I know very little about advisors; the only thing I want to mention is this: the advisor’s field of specialization is not directly tied to your own chosen direction. It is not the case that choosing an advisor in Western philosophy means you have chosen Western philosophy as your direction (though in most cases that is indeed so). A teacher of Marxist philosophy can guide you in Western philosophy, and a teacher of philosophy of science can guide you in religion. More broadly, choosing a certain direction does not mean that during your undergraduate years you must write a thesis in that direction. In short, which teacher you choose, what paper you do, and which direction you choose are not necessarily linked; they can be adjusted flexibly.

Finally, let me introduce some of the general-education and restricted-elective courses I have taken this year as a reference.

First is “Ancient Chinese Politics and Culture,” co-taught by Yan Buke and Deng Xiaonan of the history department, a D-category general-education course worth 2 credits, with Yan and Deng each teaching half a semester. Teacher Yan can be called a Confucian master; the elegance and charm of his teaching style are very distinctive. The course is very tightly paced; although it often runs over time, it feels very substantial, and their slides are also the best I have ever seen among teachers so far, not to mention the content itself. The exam only required a paper, and I heard that Teacher Yan grades very strictly. My paper was put together in a rush, and getting 85 felt fairly satisfying.

This semester I took “History of Chinese Buddhism,” taught by Teacher Zhou Xuenong from our department, as a restricted elective (major elective), worth 2 credits. Teacher Zhou’s classes are vivid and interesting, and one gains a great deal from attending. His requirements are very relaxed: he will tell you outright that he never takes attendance, that you may skip class, and that you may sleep in class; in the end, he requires only a final paper on a Buddhist topic of your choice. Of course, everyone should remember that the better the teacher and the more exciting the class, the stricter the grading often is. In the end I got 84…

This semester I used a one-stone-N-birds strategy: most of the general-education and restricted-elective courses I took were related to ecology and the environment, and my 80,000-character paper “Ecological Philosophy,” together with its extracted and adapted offshoots, was used in the paper for “History of Chinese Buddhism” (The Ecological Philosophy of Buddhism), the midterm paper for “Introduction to Marxist Philosophy” (The Ecological View of Marxism), the midterm paper for “History of Western Philosophy” (Plato’s Ecological Philosophy—Reading Notes on the Timaeus), and the papers for the five courses that followed. But I was not merely trying to save trouble through opportunism; even if an 80,000-character paper is split into ten parts, each part still has 8,000 characters, far exceeding the requirements of ordinary papers. My aim was simply to “concentrate forces to do big things.” My method is rather extreme, but perhaps everyone can borrow from it in moderation. A reminder in passing: if you are writing a genuine academic paper, note that “multiple submissions of the same manuscript” is a violation of academic ethics—but that still seems fundamentally different from what I’m doing here, right~~

“Environmental Ethics,” taught by Teacher Su Xiangui from our department, as a required course in the ethics category. Teacher Su will be my advisor; he belongs to the philosophy of science and technology teaching and research office, and besides environmental ethics his research interests include philosophy and sociology, science and religion, and so on. He graduated from the physics department as an undergraduate and did visiting scholarship work in North America… This shows that Teacher Su is a person with wide-ranging interests, and his interests overlap almost entirely with mine; his character also wins my admiration… hmm… However, his course is not particularly dazzling. Perhaps because this semester’s class hours were short and the content did not receive sufficient expansion and depth, I have already exchanged views with him and believe the course will become more and more complete in the future. Assessment is 30% from regular performance (mainly one group discussion), 30% from a paper, and 40% from a final closed-book exam (all essay questions; if the topic is too shallow, it is hard to develop it -_-). 90 points.

“Introduction to Environmental Ethics,” taught by Teacher Lin Guanming from the School of the Environment, as an A- or C-category general-education course. Very few people enrolled this semester. The course was mainly developed according to Jardins’s Environmental Ethics, translated by Teacher Lin, and it was not especially dazzling either, though Teacher Lin is a very good person. The requirements were two short papers, one final major paper, and an open-book exam. But my major paper was big enough, so Teacher Lin waived both of my short papers and the open-book exam; in the end I got 97 points, and my roommate, who studied the course with me, also got 97 points. It seems Teacher Lin has a good impression of philosophy students.

“Environmental Philosophy,” taught by Teacher Xu Chun from our department’s Marxist Philosophy teaching and research office, as a required course in the philosophy foundations category. This class was a failure; it is hard to connect Teacher Xu’s presentation with the word “philosophy.” Of course, I still greatly appreciate Teacher Xu’s devotion to his work, so I won’t say much more. One short paper in the middle of the semester and one major paper at the end. 94 points.

“Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development,” from the School of the Environment, a popular environmental science course opened for humanities students. Assessment consisted of one paper and a final presentation. Students were divided into several small groups; each group was ultimately represented by its leader in a report, after which the other groups and the teacher assigned grades. The paper was required to be under 8,000 characters, so I extracted 7,960 characters from my “Ecological Philosophy” major paper to hand in. I was not especially devoted to it, and I also did not serve as group leader at the presentation, so my final score was relatively low: 81 points.

“Introduction to Civilization and Environment,” taught by Teacher Song Yutai from the School of the Environment, as an A- or B-category general-education course. The teacher is quite good, with solid academic ability and broad interests. Each class was an independent topic, and on the very first audition class at the start of the semester he showed slides for all the courses that would be taught over the semester, but the class was still somewhat interesting, and the courseware was very well done, with abundant images and materials. In the end, he even gave out a small photocopied booklet compiled from the lecture handouts for each class. The requirements were a midterm exam and a final paper. The so-called midterm exam was actually that in the previous class he handed out six thought questions, from which we could choose any five to answer; then class was suspended once, and the answers were submitted at the following class. For the final paper, he gave more than ten suggested topics, and one could also choose one’s own related topic (and discuss it with the teacher if desired). What I wrote was “The Idea of the Unity of Heaven and Humanity in Traditional Chinese Philosophy,” extracted from my major paper, and I got 93.9 points (a strange score -_-).

Oh, and there was also “Environmental Ecology,” taught by Liu Shuhua from the School of Physics. After I managed to get into this very popular course, I attended one class and then dropped it, because I couldn’t stand Liu Shuhua. He required a paper of more than 8,000 characters. From his unrealistic demands, from the so-called “excellent sample paper” he showed us in the first class, and from his ambiguous explanation of how plagiarism should be handled, one can feel that he is indulgent and permissive toward sloppy papers and is even, in disguised form, hinting at and encouraging students to plagiarize; his unrealistic requirements moreover force students to “piece together” papers. If I’m wrong, I am willing to confront him face to face. In short, I despise him.

2. Issues of Attitude

The request says it’s best to write about specific issues, but I think that in fact many specific issues are not difficult to solve, such as how to choose courses. At first one may be confused, but once one has gone through it oneself, one understands. In fact, those technical issues are already written very clearly in the university’s handbooks and announcements and so on; many people still feel confused about them simply because they have never carefully read those handbooks, announcements, and explanations, and have not seriously thought about them. I’ll say it again: technical problems are easy to handle; the key is the issue of attitude. I think the real confusion is ideological, manifesting as a lack of adjustment to university life and to the way of studying in the philosophy department. Looking at our own class, there are still many people who have not fully integrated into university life, and many more who have still not entered the state of mind required for philosophical study. Many people have become confused about their current situation and excessively worried about their future prospects (the fact that twelve people proposed transferring departments is one reflection of this). I think that to resolve these ideological confusions, broad generalities are undoubtedly necessary~

To put it a bit cheekily: for me, there was almost no adaptation period for university life and study in the philosophy department; the sudden change in living and learning environment seemed entirely natural to me. How can one quickly adapt to and integrate into a new environment? I’ll share with everyone my secret weapon—secret weapon one: So what?—Many situations that have not occurred, many truths that have not yet been unveiled, are unknown to us and impossible to predict. Ordinary people often wait until they know the truth and are faced with events having already happened before they begin to struggle to accept them; for things that are not even certain, how could one possibly speak of “adapting”? In fact, precisely with regard to uncertainty, we may be better able to accept and adapt to it! How things will actually develop, what truth lies hidden behind appearances—although these things cannot be known with certainty, they will always fall somewhere between the best and the worst cases. Then we can imagine various possible best and worst scenarios, construct the situations we may face, and often ask ourselves: even if the result is the worst possible one, so what? After imagining the worst outcome, when we truly face the situation before us, we will always retain a sense of fortune and gratitude, and no amount of frustration will make us afraid. Carrying out this attitude does make one feel a little overbearing, as if one were always maintaining an “unshaken mind,” but one must note that this state of mind should not be understood as indifference to anything whatsoever, as if it were none of one’s business. As mentioned earlier, the people who truly embody this “unshaken mind” are precisely those who are full of feeling, because they always carry a heart of gratitude—they maintain a sense of happiness in good circumstances, keep smiling in bad ones, and when facing unexpected circumstances (one cannot of course foresee everything, but unexpected situations are usually not worse than the worst ones, right) they feel novelty and excitement, and in all circumstances they are able to feel harmony and accord.

However, keeping a calm mind is not an easy thing. After all, you are all young people, cough cough… Feeling dissatisfied, uncomfortable, or even frustrated is perfectly normal. One method I often use to relieve my troubles is to quiet myself down and go for a few laps around Weiming Lake, or sit in some corner spacing out for a while. These are all good ways to dispel worries—however, I must point out: do not try to dispel worries by forgetting or escaping them! You are still so young; how many troubles could you possibly have encountered? The road of life is long! If, right now, you already get used to hiding and dodging, to relying on forgetting to evade setbacks, then when you face even more difficulties in the future, the road of life will only grow harder and harder to walk, and pain and worry will only entangle you more and more! When facing troubles, do not run away; instead, face them honestly and bravely. Not only face them, but also accept them, embrace them, and contain them. Pacing around, spacing out, binge-eating, playing games like crazy, sleeping with your head covered, and so on are all ways to relieve stress, but what we ultimately need is not forgetting or escaping, but acceptance! Besides quieting down and thinking alone, the advice I offer is—Suggestion One: confide and listen. Actually, in many cases, simply speaking out the troubles in your heart is enough to relieve them. In the course of telling them, the troubles are often already reduced; add to that the comfort and guidance of friends/family/teachers, and if all goes well, the troubles will just disperse. You can also imagine how you would comfort someone else’s troubles: imagine that another person is in the same trouble as you and comes to you for help—how would you respond? This is also a good way to comfort yourself. Of course, telling someone else is always more effective than talking to yourself. However, you also need to choose the right person to tell. If the other person is someone sunk deep in sorrow, someone who hates life, they may not help you find comfort; instead, they will complain together with you. You suffer, I suffer—then as everyone talks, everyone gets sadder, and even if you had no trouble, you’d end up talking trouble into existence, and that would not be good. Or if the other person holds harmful values or an unhealthy attitude toward life, they may offer you guidance, even enthusiastically and proactively guide you, but the direction is dangerous. Some cult practices are an example. So the best people to confide in are good friends and reliable elders. My suggestion is: try talking with elders or “people who have been there”; talk with people who have experienced and thought about more things. At times like this, I suggest everyone humbly listen to the experience of those who have gone before. I am not a monist; I admit that on many questions you have your views and I have mine, and neither side should impose its own thinking on others. But I do suggest that everyone not resist didactic advice delivered from a higher place. Often, with a humble heart, listen to the experience of those who have been there, of elders, teachers, and ancient sages. Even if positions may differ, if there are things you have not experienced but he has endured, things you have not thought about but he has thought through, situations you have considered only from one angle while he has imagined them from every angle, views you find vague and ambiguous while he holds them with firm confidence and unwavering certainty… then in those matters, you are below and he is above. Once the positions are set right, conversation with elders will benefit you greatly. I emphasize all this not only because I hope you will respect your elders, respect your teachers, respect professors, and of course not merely because I hope you will patiently listen to me speak… There is also a hidden meaning: I hope you will also set your own position correctly in your philosophy studies. Philosophy certainly requires criticism and questioning, but remember to stop at the proper point and address the issue, not the person; do not always read philosophy books in a rebellious mood.

Entering university means that you are about to step into society. In the university years ahead, and after you enter society, what we will face is a campus life increasingly distant from our ideals, as we move into the realities of social life. During this period, you will come into contact with more and more new things and new ideas, and this will inevitably bring with it many, many shocks to your ingrained ways of thinking. Growth is unavoidable, and your thoughts will inevitably keep changing and being changed. Faced with the impact of the outside world and the changes within ourselves, anxiety is very natural. When I now think back to the me of three years ago, I already feel like a different person. Although I adapt easily to changes in my external environment, I find my own changes a little frightening. Here the advice I give everyone is—Suggestion Two: hold fast to your convictions. Change is inevitable and necessary, but under no circumstances should you drift with the tide or change by parroting what others say. This society now is a society saturated with profit and desire, full of filth and ugliness; those without convictions easily get swept into it and lose themselves. However, I am even less in favor of defection. This society now is also a society saturated with rebellion; many people try to confirm themselves through revolt and rejection. This current is especially obvious in universities. In fact, this is just falling into the secular tide by another route! What I mean by holding fast is neither drifting with the tide nor floating off into rebellion, but holding fast to your own convictions. Whether you dissolve into the current of the times or swim against it, the key is to hold fast to what you believe in and keep walking the path you believe in!

I can say that I am a person who sticks to principles, but I can also say that I am a person who has no principles. Because I always hold fast to my convictions, yet I have hardly established any principles, so there is almost nothing principled about me to speak of. My advice to everyone is—Suggestion Three: know how to choose and give up. Not just any random idea is worth your whole life of holding on to. Many once-held convictions and once-pursued goals may, as you grow, become childish, ridiculous, or be proven impossible to realize. At such times, you need to make choices and let go. Giving up is not easy. Do not say “let go” and then let go, but neither can you stubbornly cling to things without knowing when to adapt. The best way is to cautiously establish your convictions. Things like “I must get into such-and-such school,” “I must major in such-and-such,” or “my grade in subject X must be this and that” are at most grand-sounding words of self-motivation; they are absolutely not convictions worth clinging to. The convictions I mean when I say one must hold fast are the fundamental attitudes with which one conducts oneself in the world—namely, the life outlook and values you believe in. Convictions in this respect cannot be casually established. If something is indeed wrong, it must also be carefully abandoned; and the convictions truly worth holding fast to must withstand scrutiny. The reason I emphasize this is that the university years are our last critical period for establishing convictions. Once we leave campus, we will face this society directly as real adults. Right now is the last and best moment for us to think carefully about how we should conduct ourselves as human beings!

Entering the philosophy department, one unique issue you have to face is not being understood. People in general have very little idea of what philosophy actually studies, and a bigger problem is that there are also widespread misunderstandings and prejudices. As freshmen in the philosophy department, there is also this issue: misunderstanding what it is you are about to study. But your misunderstandings can gradually be eliminated as the courses unfold, whereas the outside world’s misunderstandings cannot be eliminated. My advice to everyone is—Suggestion Four: open your heart. Studying philosophy does indeed carry a dangerous tendency: to close oneself off and refuse communication with the outside world. Even within philosophy as a discipline, such a tendency exists—for example, between Chinese philosophy, Western philosophy, Marxist philosophy, and so on, there are also cases of people drawing boundaries and having no dealings with one another. I hope that when you are not understood by others, you will not feel resentful or afraid, and will not try to reject or evade it. Not being understood is a natural thing; it happens not only when studying philosophy, but also often in life. Your thoughts or wishes may not be understood, or may even be misunderstood and distorted. In such situations, I hope you will not choose to flee or to reject; instead, open your heart and embrace others, other viewpoints, and other fields. The existence of misunderstanding means that more communication is needed. Even if communication is temporarily difficult, one should always maintain calmness and tolerance. If you cannot open your own heart, then do not expect others to accept you either.

My final suggestion is—Suggestion Five: draw clear boundaries. Although one should open one’s heart and accept others, acceptance does not mean mixing everything together indiscriminately. We are students of the most whatever, most whatever, most whatever university in China—Peking University; we study in the philosophy department, the place that values thought above all else. We cannot measure our standards by those of ordinary street folk. On the other hand, those of us who have not yet entered the academy should also draw clear boundaries between ourselves and the masters and ancient sages. Do not study some kind of amateur pseudo-scholarship and start shouting about overthrowing Einstein because you did not learn middle-school physics well. In short, you must put yourself in the right position, clarify your own responsibilities and capacities, and know what you should and should not do. Some people may say that even after entering Peking University, even after studying philosophy, one should still keep a humble heart. That is certainly good, but what, then, is humility? For example, if someone says, “Although we are intellectuals, we are still just like ordinary people out in the world; you have your life and I have mine, and people are all equal…” is that humility? On the surface it does seem quite humble, but behind it lurks a kind of ignorant arrogance! Because if you follow that logic through, then those sages, prophets, heroes, great figures, and so on are all just like everyone else, no different. Are they also equal to the vulgar people who know only “hunger and lust are human nature” and “every man for himself, and Heaven and Earth will destroy him”? In real society this does indeed seem to be the case. People have stripped the wise and the old of their right to preach, young people disdain to listen, and digging up gossip, scandals, and lurid anecdotes about heroes and great men, along with tireless slander and denunciation of ancient sages and worthies, has become a fashion… (Please do not misunderstand me: I am fiercely opposed to “authority worship.” Everyone has the right to have their own thoughts, but to think and to criticize, first you must be a good listener!) True humility is not you yield to me and I yield to you while talking endlessly about equality; it is putting yourself in the proper position! Whew… Of course, if you advocate融入芸芸众生 and are unwilling to stand above the mundane, that is also correct, and I have nothing to say. Then compare yourself with yourself! When entering university, the first thing to do is to draw a line between it and the middle-school era—the attitude toward life and the way of studying in university are completely different from those in middle school, and you must clearly feel this! You should recognize that university is no longer middle school; the university self should be different from the middle-school self—what exactly that difference is, each person will understand differently, but one thing is certain: there should be change. For example, in university you may still have to rely on your parents financially, but if, spiritually, you are still nestled in your parents’ arms, or even in daily life still need your parents to take care of everything and in your studies still need your parents’ reminders, then you must change. If, upon entering university, you still continue the middle-school way of studying, relying on teachers, relying on the classroom, relying on textbooks, then that too must change. Different people grow at different paces; some mature earlier, some later. But in any case, the transition from middle school to university means a turning point. I hope everyone will consciously throw themselves into this turning point and actively allow themselves to grow.

“Even if 99% of the universe is filled with darkness, when I look up at the night sky, my eyes still see that brilliant starry expanse! — To treat goodness and beauty with a heart of gratitude; to accept evil and ugliness with a broad and tolerant heart—this world is actually truly wonderful…” The above is my so-called philosophy of the starry sky, containing my basic attitude toward life and conduct, and I put it here to share with everyone. Although the language may not be as profound as those famous sayings, on this one matter alone, if everyone has any dissatisfaction or disdain, there is no need to show it in front of me~

July 26, 2005