Chapter 7 Teaching

After returning from overseas study, Jin Yuelin was first hired to teach logic at Tsinghua University, and was entrusted by the school to establish the Department of Philosophy of Tsinghua University and served as the head of the department.At that time, the Department of Philosophy had only one teacher, Jin Yuelin, and only one student, Shen Youding.Over the next thirty years, he not only established the Department of Philosophy at Tsinghua University, but also trained many great masters in this field, and the world is full of students.In the words of Mr. Wang Zisong, Mr. Jin’s old colleague: “Until 1952, the students in Tsinghua’s philosophy department were all Mr. Jin’s students, or students’ students.”

When Jin Yuelin is teaching, he often regards students as scholars, and studies problems with the attitude of scholars to scholars.He often "brings no books, no lecture notes, and only a piece of chalk when he walks into the classroom. This chalk is not suitable, and he often doesn't write a word after a class." Jin Yuelin taught logic. Some students (according to Wang Zengqi's recollection, it may be Chen Yunzhen, that is, Xiao Shan) felt that this subject was very boring, so they asked him curiously: Why do you want to engage in logic?Professor Jin replied: "I think it is very interesting."

When Southwest Associated University, Jin Yuelin offered an elective course "Symbolic Logic".For many people, listening to this course is like listening to heaven.Therefore, every time a class is held, there are only a few sporadic people in the classroom.One of the students named Wang Hao is an exception, and he can quite understand the mystery.Jin Yuelin often stopped during the lecture and asked, "Wang Hao, what do you think?" So, the next class became a dialogue between the teacher and the student. When Southwest Associated University started school, Yin Haiguang chose "Introduction to Philosophy" by Zheng Xin. This professor had studied in Germany and had a deep understanding of Kant's philosophy.Zheng Xin found out that Yin Haiguang also came to his class, so she said to him: "You don't need to take my class, just go down and read by yourself." So Yin Haiguang stopped coming to class, and he read books and studied by himself at the end of the semester. And got the highest grade in this class.He took Jin Yuelin's logic class, and Professor Jin also said to him: "You don't need to take my class. Wang Xianjun just came back from Austria. He must be better than me. Go and listen to him!"

Jin Yuelin has a tall figure and wears a windbreaker. When he enters the classroom, he always brings a student's chair and places it on the edge of the podium.Although facing the students, he always lowered his head, sometimes even closed his eyes, thinking for himself, while talking about his philosophical issues, and sitting and talking.Sometimes when talking about self-satisfaction and anger, I would stand up suddenly, write a few words on the blackboard, or ask students a question, and the teachers and students would discuss it together. Feng Youlan and Jin Yuelin both taught formal logic, and Zhang Songnian's logic was a bit like Russell's, but the most popular class was Jin Yuelin's class.When he came to his class, there were hundreds of people, almost full.Although Ji Xianlin had studied logic in high school, the logic Jin Yuelin taught was different from what he had learned, so he did not do well in the exam. Later he found out that the formal logic Jin Yuelin taught was not the same system as what he had learned.Jin Yuelin once talked about the sentence "I eat" and said that rereading "I" means: "I" eats, not "you" eats.Re-reading "eating" means: I "eat" rice, not I "pull" rice.

Among the logic textbooks in our country, the most influential one is "Formal Logic" edited by Jin Yuelin in the 1960s. After the publication of this book, logic textbooks based on or based on it have emerged in an endless stream, and there are at least hundreds of them so far.