Heaven knows how I still had the leisure to write an essay during final-exam season. Contemporary politics and economics have already been smashed to pieces, tomorrow’s English is hopeless too, and I can’t even finish reading Chinese philosophy…… Sigh. But today during a group chat CG mentioned that he wanted to “bring social, political, and economic studies into one coherent whole,” of course just as casual chatter, but it made me think of some questions.
Someone once shouted the slogan “bringing Chinese, Western, and Marxist thought into one coherent whole,” and very soon someone else coined the matching line, “boasting of smashing through ancient and modern cattle.” To shout about “bringing things into one” often gives people the feeling of arrogance and overreaching ambition. So if I not only say that I want to “bring Chinese, Western, and Marxist thought into one coherent whole,” to bridge the great fields and schools of philosophy, but also say that I want to break down the boundaries between the natural sciences and the social sciences, to break down the line between “science, philosophy, and religion,” then I suppose many people will cast me looks of contempt and disdain. And yet, this really is where my aspiration lies. (Don’t rush to throw eggs at me; hear me out first.)
Here we must first clarify a concept — saying “I want” and saying “I am” are two completely different things!
To say “I want” to “bring Chinese, Western, and Marxist thought into one coherent whole” is entirely different in meaning from saying “I am,” or “I want to become,” “a scholar who has brought Chinese, Western, and Marxist thought into one coherent whole.” The former speaks of an aspiration, a pursuit. This is like the difference between “love of wisdom” and “wisdom” itself, like the difference between saying that I am pursuing truth or that I possess truth; this difference is decisive. I say I hope to break down the boundaries between disciplines, to connect disciplines, to connect ancient and modern — but is that something possible through my own strength alone? When I say I want to “bring things into one coherent whole,” I am by no means deluding myself into thinking that I can really become a master capable of encyclopedic command of ancient and modern learning. Even for a master, in the modern age, to rely on one’s own strength alone—let alone to “bring things into one coherent whole”—even simply to understand what questions each major discipline is currently discussing is almost impossible. The “bringing into one coherent whole” that I pursue is not a state that can be achieved in reality; rather, it refers to an “undertaking,” like “love of wisdom” — an undertaking to which countless people devote themselves generation after generation! Those who join this undertaking include the experts and scholars of various disciplines who are unwilling to be confined by professional boundaries — scientists who value the humanities, humanists who value science, people dedicated to building bridges among the disciplines, and so on. It is not necessary for everyone to be broadly learned in literature and science, ancient and modern. Some people devote their whole lives to a single professional field; this field may be extremely small, extremely narrow, and they may delve deeply into certain specialized questions. But so long as they always maintain an open mind and hope to connect their own specialty with the other, like-minded undertakings that arrive at the same destination by different routes, then they too are a force in this “bringing into one coherent whole” undertaking.
Here I can add a few words: I have always said that I do not want to be an expert; what I want to be is a “drifter” not bound by any one professional field. In other words, I want to play the role of a “bridge” or “lubricant,” so to speak. But personally, I have the utmost admiration for experts. In fact, when I entered university, the majors I most wanted to choose were mathematics, physics, economics, and the like; even the desire to choose “the Department of Geophysics” ranked ahead of the Department of Philosophy. Studying philosophy itself was already a reluctant choice. Although after entering the philosophy department I discovered that philosophy was in fact the most suitable field for me, and if I were allowed to choose again, philosophy would probably become my first choice, this does not mean that I think philosophy has a higher status than those concrete sciences. I study philosophy only because I lack the ability to do anything else. I still revere the experts and scholars of concrete disciplines, concrete fields, and concrete questions; indeed, I even think that on any concrete question, a philosopher or philosophy scholar is always “below” the “expert,” meaning that on any concrete question, philosophy has no right to assume an arrogant posture of lofty condescension. On the contrary, it should always take the low posture of a layperson humbly seeking instruction from an insider. Of course, philosophy is noble, and its nobility is precisely manifested through its spirit of humility.
Back to the main topic. So, is this undertaking of “bringing things into one coherent whole” possible to realize? No! Just like “love of wisdom,” this is forever a pursuit. I have held to this point since high school — although the various disciplines all arrive at the same destination by different routes, we cannot ultimately merge them into one. That is why in high school I spoke of “great unification” rather than “total unification.” While merging, new divisions will constantly arise. If, in the end, all the boundaries between disciplines were truly brought down, that is, if all disciplines were “dissolved,” then that would mean the human undertaking of seeking knowledge and wisdom had come to an end, which is absolutely impossible. When I was in high school, I compared “philosophical great unification” to the utopian communism — to the ideal society — but no real society can ever be perfect. After some problems are solved, one must still face new, unknown problems. Yet precisely because “perfection” is unattainable, it can serve as an eternal pursuit.
The above is just a brief clarification of the conceptual issue. In a few days I’ll talk about how exactly I intend to devote myself to the undertaking of “bringing things into one coherent whole.” That’s all for today.
January 3, 2006
Latest comments
zw 2006-01-03 20:53:40 [reply]
Today in the group chat, the one who brought up “bringing social, political, and economic studies into one coherent whole” seems to have been wx
Gu: Oh, I forgot — it really was WX. .. Your group is so noisy; how could I have looked that carefully…… That was only the origin that led me to write this essay, that’s all.
shangling 2009-12-21 13:35:06 [reply]
Finished reading all of the posts from 2005. I’ll stop here for today and continue reading tomorrow.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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