China's Thoughts Simply Spoken

Author: Qian Mu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: This book aims to identify several widely used and popular concepts and terms in contemporary Chinese society—such as "reason," "life and destiny," "virtue," and "destiny." By tracing the entire history of Chinese thought from these common notions, it delves into the intrinsic meanings, evolution, and interconnectedness of these concepts, thereby outlining a major framework of traditional Chinese thought. Distinguished gentlemen, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to deliver a systematic lecture to you. My lecture will span four sessions, divided into four topics. Collectively, I have tentatively titled it Several Universal Themes in Chinese Thought. First, let me briefly explain the meaning of the term "Chinese thought." When we speak of thought, it can refer to individual philosophies, such as Confucian thought or Wang Yangming's thought. It can also refer to broader categories, such as Chinese thought or Indian thought. The origins of human thought were originally universal. For instance, hunger leads to the desire for food, thirst to the desire for drink, and cold to the need for clothing. However, over time, thought diverged, such as the separation between rice and wheat diets, with some people thinking about baking bread while others about cooking rice. Drinking habits also diverged, with some people considering how to make coffee while others how to cultivate tea leaves. Clothing habits did the same, with some people thinking about raising silkworms and weaving silk while others about shearing sheep and weaving wool. Human thought has evolved in this manner, diverging yet retaining a degree of universality. "Chinese thought," then, is a subset within the broader universality of human thought. And when it comes to Confucian thought or Wang Yangming's thought, "Chinese thought" still represents a commonality. When discussing thought, it is essential to recognize its coherence. In other words, thought must have a tradition. Thought of this era must have roots, threads, and a structure in the preceding era. Therefore, any fully formed thought must have a historical dimension. When discussing thought, it is necessary to examine the history of thought. Human behavior is guided by thought. Only because thought has a tradition and structure can human behavior endure across time, maintaining continuity. This continuity in behavior is what we call a historical spirit. Historical spirit also has a universality, yet it must retain its divergent characteristics. These divergences give rise to the distinctiveness of each culture in human history, or what we call specificity. Within each culture, there are also the characteristics of different eras. In divergence, there is universality; in universality, there is divergence. "Chinese thought," then, seeks to extract its universality from the divergences in the thought of the Chinese nation across eras, thereby highlighting its differences from the thought of other cultures. In any culture, there must be certain common thoughts that have endured through time, transcended eras, and deeply resonated in the hearts of people, profoundly influencing all aspects of society. These become widely valued, believed, or explored topics, almost becoming a cliché. We may, due to familiarity, overlook or even neglect the profound significance behind these clichés. Yet it is important to recognize that they are the crystallization of a culture's common thought. Only this thought is alive and powerful. All thought divergences stem from it. We now live in a great era, an era of intellectual struggle. We must be able to create new thoughts that meet the urgent needs of our time. But to create new thoughts for our era, we must explore the traditional thought of history, as it is deeply embedded in the collective hearts of all of us, in each of us. It has shaped our history and has become a core of our lives. All our actions, often without conscious awareness, stem from it. How can we afford to ignore it? We must grasp the historical tradition of thought to create new thoughts for our time and fulfill our era's new mission. My four lectures will be based on this perspective to discuss several universal themes in Chinese thought. These themes must be timeless, discussed by thinkers across all eras. They must also deeply resonate in the hearts of ordinary people today. Therefore, to discuss the history of thought is, in essence, to discuss modern thought, as it lies deeply rooted in the heart of modern thought, possessing a profound vitality. Thus, it is something we cannot help but pay attention to, explore, and develop to meet the needs of our time and become new thought. Due to time constraints, I will only elaborate on this in four sessions as examples.