Chapter 6 scholarship

Before Jin Yuelin went to study in the United States, he consulted his elder brother on how to choose a major.His brother suggested that he study bookkeeping.After Jin Yuelin arrived in the United States, he began to study step by step. Later, because he was not interested, he changed to political science.Regarding this change, Jin Yuelin wrote to his elder brother specifically, saying: "Book accounting is a trivial skill. I am a man of seven feet, why should I learn this skill. In the past, Xiang Yu didn't learn swords because the sword is the enemy of one man and cannot be the enemy of thousands. husband."

When Jin Yuelin was studying in the United States, he studied political science and obtained a doctorate in political science. Later, he became interested in logic.When he returned to China, it happened that Zhao Yuanren, who originally taught logic at Tsinghua University, was going to teach phonology. Tsinghua hired Jin Yuelin to replace Zhao to continue teaching logic, so Jin Yuelin studied while teaching. In 1931, Jin Yuelin went to the United States to study for another year and studied logic under the tutelage of Mr. Xie Fei from Harvard University.Jin Yuelin told Xie Fei that he had taught logic, but hadn't, and Xie Fei laughed.

Jin Yuelin studied business and political science in his early years. Perhaps these studies did not pose any challenge to his intelligence, so he had no interest in these "things".Once when he was walking with Zhang Xiruo and Qin Lilian on the Rue Saint-Michel in Paris, they met some people who had a quarrel for some reason, and these three people actually followed them in to argue with them.From then on, Jin Yuelin became interested in logic.When he read the works of neo-Hegelian philosopher TH Green, he said that he felt emotional appreciation and identification for the first time, and since then his enthusiasm for philosophy has been out of control.

When he was at the University of Cambridge in England, Jin Yuelin listened to two philosophical masters, Russell and Moore, and read two philosophical works that had a great influence on him: Russell's "Principles of Mathematics" and Hume's "On Human Nature".These two works gave Jin Yuelin a new understanding of philosophy, and the strong shock made him devote himself to Western philosophy.Complete abandonment of business bookkeeping and political science. When Jin Yuelin first read Hume's "Treatise of Human Nature", he felt that "Treatise of Human Nature" was "magnificent" and "remarkable". Later, through research, he found that there were many problems in it: Hume was only discussing with fluent words that even he himself could not solve the problems. However, he "was able to ask many important questions and conduct in-depth discussions." This discovery made him more interested in philosophical research.

Later, Jin Yuelin traveled to Germany, France, Italy and other European countries to study.During this period, he was almost completely immersed in Western philosophy, from Socrates, Plato to Aristotle, from Locke, Hume to Kant, from Bradley to Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein, he They have carried out extensive and in-depth research, and integrated their thoughts and theories into their own rich ideological nutrition and materials for constructing their own philosophy and logic systems, which will be used for his future writings such as Logic, On Tao, "Knowledge" and other works have laid a solid foundation.

In 1926, after returning to China, Jin Yuelin published his first philosophical paper: "Materialist Philosophy and Science".He said in the article: "There seem to be many philosophical animals in the world, and I am one myself. Even if they are put in prison to do hard work, their minds are still full of philosophical problems." Jin Yuelin's Theory of Knowledge was originally completed in Kunming during the Anti-Japanese War, with a total of 600,000 to 700,000 words.At that time, Japanese planes frequently raided Kunming. In order to prevent the manuscript from being destroyed by the bombing of Japanese planes, Jin Yuelin took the manuscript to the police.When he got to the edge of the mountain, he sat on the manuscript.Once the bombing took too long, and when the bombing ended, it was already dark, so he stood up and left, forgetting to take the manuscript.When he remembered to go back, the manuscript was gone.So he had to start over again.By December 1948, Jin Yuelin's rewritten "On Knowledge" was completed.

Tsinghua attaches great importance to philosophical issues and logic, so discussions and debates prevail, and the logic group is the place where academic debates are the most intense.The teachers in the group are all Jin Yuelin's students or their students' students, and they often disagree with each other when encountering problems, and their faces are red when they fight.The three generations of Jin Yuelin, Shen Youding, and Zhou Liquan are representatives of them. Whether it is a teacher or a student, as long as you say something wrong, I will refute it. If I can’t refute it today, I plan to come again next time.

Jin Yuelin believes that Hu Shi's "Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy" was written according to the philosophical propositions of experimentalism popular in the United States at that time, "When we read that book again, we will inevitably have a strange impression. The author of the book is an American who studies Chinese thought; the prejudice that Mr. Hu unconsciously reveals is the prejudice of most Americans." In 1935, Jin Yuelin's "Logic" was published.This is considered "the first pure logic in Chinese history" in the field of Chinese logic.At that time, the "Guowen Weekly" spoke highly of Jin Yuelin and his "Logic": "His thoughts are profound, his analysis is meticulous, and his wording is rigorous. He is not such a thoughtful philosopher, but there are few other philosophical publications in China. Hey, even if there are not many publications on Western philosophy. If Chinese realism can be led by scholars, we can foresee that it will be "in the ascendant" and "five generations will prosper"!"

In his later years, Jin Yuelin believed that three books could sum up his life: "I want to talk about my books, but I only wrote three books. The one I am more satisfied with is "On Tao", and the one that took the most effort is "On Knowledge". Worst of all is the University Logic." Jin Yuelin's "On Knowledge" was written twice, which took more than ten years, and it took another 35 years from the completion of the draft to the official publication.After the founding of New China, Zhang Dainian met Jin Yuelin and asked Jin if his "On Knowledge" had ever been finished.Jin replied: It has been written, I wrote this book, and I can die. In 1983, just one year before Jin Yuelin's death, the Commercial Press finally published "Theory of Knowledge". Jin Yuelin said in the preface: ""Theory of Knowledge" is a book full of disasters... I spent the most energy. The longest book, and I'm very, very happy that it's officially published today."

When he was at the Southwest Associated University, Jin Yuelin lived with Zhu Ziqing, Chen Daisun, Li Jitong and other professors in the big box of the Tang (Jiyao) Garden Stage at No. 71 Beimen Street, Kunming.Several colleagues reserved the quietest place for Jin Yuelin to write.The most complete and creative ontological monograph "Lun Dao" in the modern Chinese philosophy system was born here. Jin Yuelin's "Lun Dao" distinguishes "between" and "time". Jin Yuelin said: "The focus of "Lun Dao" is the flow of time." .''The ability to come and go is called the number.''The number and the number are called the time.' This brings me back to the infinite and Taiji torrent of the universe."

Someone asked Jin Yuelin why the book was called Lun Dao, and Jin Yuelin replied: "Tao has a Chinese flavor." When he wrote "Lun Dao", Feng Youlan was also writing a hemostatic work "New Neo-Confucianism".The two read each other's manuscripts and influenced each other.Feng Youlan said that her book is "new wine in old bottles", and Jin Yuelin's is "new wine in new bottles". Feng Youlan believes that Jin Yuelin's influence on him lies in logical analysis, while his influence on Jin Yuelin is relatively small. If there is, it may be in the "Falling on the Nostalgia of the Past".