Reviewing the Past to Know the New -- A Collection of Research Papers on Chinese Philosophy

Author: By Liu Yuli
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-11-01
Features: With the care, supervision, and assistance of students, some of the articles I have written over the past two decades on Chinese philosophy and culture have been selected and compiled into this collection, titled "Wen Gu Zhi Xin." Although I have long been engaged in the research and teaching of the history of Chinese philosophy and have delivered numerous related lectures, frankly speaking, I have never had a systematic or comprehensive plan in my writing. As a result, I have never written a monograph and have not even produced a finalized set of lecture notes. The more than 30 articles in this collection are simply a haphazard compilation of such unsystematic writings. The intention behind the title "Wen Gu Zhi Xin" is to hope that readers, after reading these old articles with outdated and limited views, will be inspired to generate numerous enlightening and insightful new ideas. For myself, looking back at some of my past writings and reflecting on my academic and intellectual journey, I also hope to derive new directions of thought and principles from them. In the classroom, I never ask students to take down everything I say, nor do I expect them to memorize what I teach as the standard answer during exams. I only hope that students can grasp the essence of my lectures and forget the words, as if they were able to understand the meaning without clinging to the literal text. If they can grasp the essence, simply jotting down a few notes for future reference would suffice. Similarly, when reading my articles, I hope everyone can grasp the essence and forget the words, and thereby derive new and profound insights from these old ideas, producing their own brilliant works. This is my sincere expectation.