I spent the first semester of my postdoctoral stay at BNU without really taking part in much beyond Teacher Tian’s weekly writing class. My sense of presence was zero. Thinking about it, that really wasn’t very becoming, so at Teacher Tian’s suggestion, over the past two weeks I took part in various activities such as the master’s thesis proposal defenses and doctoral pre-defenses in the department’s research office, just to show my face a bit and, at the same time, to get a feel for the style and method of the philosophy of science and technology program at BNU.
Listening to all kinds of defense presentations, I have increasingly felt how important Teacher Wu’s guidance is, especially his emphasis on the importance of “secondary literature.” Many students—of course, this is not just a BNU problem; the students at Peking University are not immune either—focus only on mastering primary literature and neglect secondary literature.
What is called “secondary literature,” Teacher Tian said, should more accurately be described as “second-order literature,” so as not to be confused with translated versions of primary texts. I agree with this concept. Still, I feel that the term “secondary literature” remains usable: on the one hand, it is more plain and familiar; on the other, it more vividly suggests the image of an intermediary, a “second passer.” Translations of the original work can also count as a kind of secondary literature, and ordinary research literature generally does as well. By contrast, “second-order literature” can be ambiguous. For example, scientists may be studying problems in mechanics, while sociologists of science are studying scientists’ studies; such research can be called “second-order research,” but the different orders of research here do not belong to the same academic circle, and the difference in rank is absolute. The “secondary literature” I am talking about is relative: it is a “helper” relative to my object of study. For instance, when I am studying Plato’s philosophical thought, Aristotle’s comments on Plato can be used as secondary literature for reference, but Plato and Aristotle, and even I myself, still belong to the same trade.
“Secondary literature” sounds a bit cheap, and indeed it is. Compared with the classic texts of great scientists or great philosophers, secondary literature is generally not unattainable, and may very well be written by colleagues who stand shoulder to shoulder with us and whom we meet all the time. Of course, a good academic paper should find secondary literature substantial enough—that is, it should find some “authoritative” works to serve as its core references. The quality of a paper depends less on its reading of primary literature than on its command of secondary literature. Unless I have obtained some exclusive historical materials as primary sources, the original materials or classic texts we face are usually things that many people have already studied. If no scholars in the field have studied them, then we have ample reason to doubt whether the topic is worth studying; and if many colleagues have already studied them, then we should build on their research rather than repeat the labor.
This is not merely a matter of respect for colleagues or of formal academic propriety. More importantly, good secondary literature can help us enter the problem quickly. When I criticized a student who was trying to do a study of Aristotle’s cosmology, she said she felt quite resistant to my criticism, because she had read the entire Aristotle corpus and knew Greek, so she felt very confident. But in fact, her research plan fully revealed her weakness: it was big and comprehensive, comprehensive and diffuse, diffuse and empty. She was trying to sort out and introduce all of Aristotle’s discussions related to the cosmos, but we could not see any sharp problem consciousness, nor could we see any striking insight or creative spark. This is a common failing of many Chinese degree theses: they stop at summary and introduction. That is popular science, not scholarship. Without the help of secondary literature, it is difficult for us to grasp the problem from the text; even if we do grasp some problems, they are either not easy to develop in depth or have already been discussed by others. In that case, the entire thesis lacks interest—you have summarized everything correctly, but why should I read it?
A thesis is different from a private reading notebook or a set of personal reflections. An academic paper is written for colleagues in the academic world to read, and a degree thesis is even more a stepping-stone into that world. When writing an academic paper, one’s colleagues in the field are the objects of dialogue, so one must always consider how those readers will view the piece. If you are merely repeating what those colleagues already know, who would want to read the paper? Secondary literature, beyond providing problem consciousness, also provides a sense of one’s peers—first read the works of your colleagues, and only then can you hope that your colleagues will read your own work.
I feel that the main reason many students’ theses lack clear positioning and become empty and vague is still the mentality with which they write. Many students seem to treat a thesis as a kind of “homework,” that is, an “exercise” in basic instruction used to test learning outcomes or teaching effectiveness. So their theses emphasize reflecting their learning achievements: how much they have read, their ability to summarize, whether their understanding is correct and comprehensive. But in fact, a thesis is not homework. Rather than saying that a thesis is a teacher’s examination of a student, it is more accurate to say that it is a student’s challenge to the teacher.
Unlike in basic education, the relationship between university students—especially graduate students—and teachers is no longer a one-way relationship of transmission, but a dialogical relationship in which teaching and learning enhance each other. On the one hand, the teacher improves through exchange with students, expanding or extending his or her own academic territory through the students’ help; on the other hand, the student steps into the temple of learning on the shoulders of the advisor. Of course, just as a short person standing on the shoulders of a giant does not mean the student will become taller than the advisor as soon as they stand up, in the specific field and specific problem under study, and within the scope covered by the degree thesis, the student ought to be able to go deeper than the advisor. For at least in this respect, the student must fully absorb the resources and creativity the advisor can provide. If the advisor has failed to provide the student with the resources and insights he or she possesses, then the advisor is unqualified. If, after absorbing all the support provided by the advisor, the student still cannot take even one further step, then the student is unqualified.
However one looks at it, the advisor becomes the first reader of the degree thesis. A degree thesis is first and foremost written for the advisor to read. But this is not like middle-school homework, where one simply reports learning results to the teacher; rather, it is meant to challenge the advisor and allow the advisor to learn something from the thesis. Therefore, a good degree thesis should first of all be interesting to the advisor. Merely restating opinions the advisor already knows, or summarizing literature the advisor has long since read, is a failed thesis.
So I think the right mentality for writing a thesis is to treat the advisor as a “hypothetical enemy,” as the direct opponent facing the thesis. Writing is not for the purpose of getting the advisor to check a box and mark everything correct, but for making the advisor’s eyes light up and see something fresh.
This may be one reason why the academic world, and especially the philosophical world, has traditionally had so many more men than women: a good thesis needs to be written with a mindset of sparring with the advisor and with one’s peers, and at least in the current cultural environment, women relatively lack this combative spirit. Whether this atmosphere is ideal is another question, but as things stand now, even if one is not especially fond of fighting, one should at least have the courage to get drawn into argument. After all, the academic world is such a place.
The little course I will be offering next semester, Academic Research Guide, is intended to talk about the writing of academic papers. Although my own academic papers cannot be said to be especially standardized or excellent, I feel that attitude or spirit matters more, and those are things I am confident I can convey. Next time I’ll talk a bit about the three kinds of “swagger” possessed by philosophers~
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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