The Philosophy of Literature —— Notes on Genesis

Genetics (Greek φ υ λ ο γ? νεση,φ? λ ο, modern Greek: fílo- species, sex and γ ε ν ν? σ η, modern Greek: jénnissi- rebirth, birth. Also known as phylogeny. ) refers to the occurrence and development of biological species in the historical development of the earth. This concept is not only used for the occurrence and development of animal species, but also used for taxonomic units at all levels of systematics. It can also be applied to the evolution of a feature in the process of biological development.

The study of "phylogeny" is realized in the following ways:

Comparison and study of morphological and anatomical features of fossils, comparison of morphological, anatomical and physiological features of existing organisms, individual development of organisms, especially existing organisms, DNA analysis, for example, sequencing and molecular "phylogenetic" generation methods.

Through these data, people can establish a new "phylogenetic tree" (phylogenetic tree) for organisms, which describes the possible genetic relationships among various species. The biggest difficulty in the study of "phylogeny" is that the evolutionary process of phylogeny cannot be directly confirmed by observation and experiment. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively analyze all aspects of evidence. Because of the different emphasis on these evidences, the phylogenetic tree often has different versions, for example, whether several phylum of protozoa belong to molting animals (evidence from genetics) or tentacle animals (evidence from morphology).

Genetics, as a concept and method, is used more and more frequently in the field of humanities, and its scope of use is also increasingly extensive. However, some people have misunderstandings when using this concept. The most common thing is to understand occurrence as origin and heredity as occurrence. The reason for this misunderstanding is that it confuses the occurrence of ideas and events. The occurrence of ideas and the occurrence of events are two different concepts. The former emphasizes subjective understanding, while the latter emphasizes objective phenomena. So genetics studies the generation of human knowledge structure, while Genesis studies the occurrence of events in history. Occurrence is the concept of logical reasoning, and origin is the concept of historical time.

Because the study of origin is the source of historical events, there is a tendency of positivism in methodology and empiricism in epistemology. However, the origin of anything has never had an absolute beginning. Taking the occurrence of an event as the origin will inevitably lead to the absoluteness of the origin and cannot explain the generation mechanism of the knowledge structure.

The emergence of the concept of genetic research can just make up for the shortage of genetic research events. The occurrence of thought emphasizes the process of knowledge structure generation, that is, things transition from one stage to another. This transitional stage does not use events and time to demonstrate, but uses ideas to reason, thus effectively solving the problem that the study of origin is absolute and cannot explain the generation mechanism of knowledge structure.

Contrary to positivism and empiricism in origin research, genetic research grasps the interaction between subject and object and its inherent essence and law by exploring the structural generation of cognition, thus solving the shortage that origin research ignores subjectivity and only pays attention to the form of events without paying attention to function. Compared with the origin study, the genetic study is objective and historical.

Therefore, as a new method and new perspective of humanities research, genetics emphasizes the application of the genetic epistemology principle of the interaction between subject and object. In this way, Genesis is obviously different from what we call the occurrence of events and related concepts of origin. It is precisely because of the difference between the occurrence of ideas and the origin of events that genetics in the strict sense has the significance of epistemology and methodology. As epistemology, it is different from empiricism which emphasizes the result of cognition. As a methodology, it is different from positivism which studies the origin of events.

As a research method and paradigm, genetics is "grafted" from natural science to humanities. If the genetic research of natural science should be attributed to Darwin's theory of biological evolution, then the genetic research of humanities should be attributed to Piaget's genetic epistemology. Genetic epistemology's main problem is to explain how new things are formed in the process of knowledge development. Its premise is that knowledge is the result of continuous construction, and every understanding always contains a certain degree of invention and creation; The transition of knowledge from one stage to another is always marked by the formation of some new structures, and genetic epistemology's central problem is the structural mechanism of the new structures. Therefore, genetics explores the structural generation related to cognition, not only to study how cognition occurs, but also to study why cognition occurs.

To some extent, the "grafting" of genetics from natural science to humanities marks the transformation of academic paradigm of humanities. This change is reflected in the change from static phenomenon description to dynamic historical-genetic analysis, from the study of external formal elements to the study of overall content and function, from the study of the interaction result between subject and object to the study of the interaction process between subject and object, from the historical study of events and phenomena to the logical study of thoughts and cognition. As far as genetic research in humanities is concerned, comparative research and interdisciplinary research are necessary methods and approaches.

Regarding the importance of comparative study to the origin of humanities, anthropologist Levi Strauss once pointed out that any myth or fragment in a myth will not be understood if it cannot be compared with different versions of the same myth or another completely different myth, and each of them can be compared with other details of the same myth or other myths, especially its logical structure and specific content, until the last moment. In fact, as far as genetic research in humanities is concerned, comparative research is particularly important, because only on the basis of comparison can we seek universality and regularity from the whole human behavior, and this universality and regularity is an important guarantee for humanities as the law of scientific topics.

Genetics must also be an interdisciplinary study. All humanities regard people as the main body of cognition, and all involve the development process of human thinking and cognition, and all involve the historical development process of human society. Therefore, all fields of humanities are intertwined and explained to each other, which makes the genetic research of humanities have the characteristics of interdisciplinary research in specific research. In fact, only from the perspective of cognitive genesis, the genetic research of humanities is bound to be an interdisciplinary research, especially closely related to psychology, sociology, linguistics and anthropology.

First of all, the occurrence of humanities is essentially due to human needs, so the occurrence of humanities must first involve psychology; Secondly, man is the product of socialization, and humanity, as the product of the interaction between subject and object, is not only out of the subjective needs of the body, but also out of the objective social and historical environment, which inevitably involves sociology; Thirdly, Chinese (language), as a cognitive tool, is the foundation of the construction of humanities, so the study of the genesis of humanities must involve literature (linguistics). In addition, because Chinese (language) is closely related to religion, culture and other related disciplines, genetic research in humanities may involve all fields of humanities, even natural sciences.

Chapter two: What is literary philosophy?

Genetic method-it reflects and reveals the historical stages, forms and laws of the development and evolution of nature, human society and human thinking forms. It is characterized by taking the research object as the process of development and paying attention to the main, essential and inevitable factors in the historical process.

This is the inevitable process of the so-called literary (humanistic) proposition from "systematic structure of occurrence-systematic deconstruction of conclusion".

Swiss psychologist Jean jean piaget (1896— 1980) is the founder of genetic epistemology. 19 18 received his Ph.D. from the university of nachter, Switzerland, and his thesis was entitled "mollusks in the Alps". Piaget was the director of the laboratory of Rousseau College of Geneva University from 192 1 and the professor of Geneva University from 1924. He was elected President of Swiss Psychological Society and French-speaking Federation of Psychological Sciences, and President of international union of psychological science from 65438 to 0954 14. In addition, Piaget has long served as the director of the International Education Bureau under the leadership of UNESCO and the assistant director-general of UNESCO. Piaget is also an honorary doctor or an honorary professor in many famous universities.

Piaget's basic viewpoint is the epistemology of constructivism. He believes that (literary) knowledge is neither objective nor subjective, but the result of individual's gradual construction in the process of interaction with the environment. For this reason, Piaget believes that the development of (literary) knowledge is influenced by three basic processes, namely assimilation, harmony and balance. He believes that every time he encounters a new stimulus, the individual always tries to assimilate with the original schema, and if he succeeds, he can get a temporary balance. If the original schema can't assimilate environmental stimuli, individuals will make harmony, that is, adjust the original schema or re-establish a new schema until the cognition of China people reaches a new balance.

Regarding the viewpoint of (Chinese) learning, Piaget put forward five viewpoints: learning obeys development, perception obeys psychological expression, (Chinese) learning is a process of active construction, mistakes are a necessary condition for meaningful (Chinese) learning, and negation is meaningful (Chinese) learning. Among them, (Chinese) learning is a dynamic construction process, and he proposed that (Chinese) learning is not an individual acquisition. On the contrary, they know more and more about their cognitive process, that is, they construct new cognitive schema. Piaget believes that if learning (Chinese) can assimilate knowledge into its existing cognitive schema when solving problems, knowledge will not be forgotten soon, but this assimilation can only happen when learning (Chinese) actively participates in construction. Active participation in cognition does not mean that learning (Chinese) is just fiddling with some materials, but must be psychological. Therefore, learning (Chinese) should focus on the active psychological construction activities of "learners".

Piaget pointed out in his book Structuralism that the thinking structure has three elements: wholeness, transformation and self-adjustment. The integrity of the structure means that the structure has internal coherence, and the arrangement of components in the structure is organic, not a mixture of independent components. The whole and its components are determined by an internal law. The transformation of structure means that the structure is not static, but there are some internal laws that control the movement and development of the structure. The self-tunability of structure refers to the schema in the balanced adjustment structure, that is to say, the structure is self-regulating due to its own laws and does not depend on external factors, so the structure is self-regulating and closed.

Piaget put forward in Introduction to genetic epistemology Principles: "Traditional epistemology only cares about the advanced level of cognition, in other words, only cares about some final results of cognition. Therefore, genetic epistemology's purpose is to study the origin of various understandings, starting from the lowest form of understanding and tracking this understanding to all levels in the future, all the way to scientific thinking, including scientific thinking. "

The genetic method he advocated and practiced not only studied the "origin" of the object, but also the "development" of the object; The limitations of traditional epistemology pointed out by him are also prominent in our modern and contemporary literature research. When we study literature and literary theory criticism, and study the history of literature and literary theory criticism, we often think that the answer to the most basic question "What is literature" is self-evident and there is no need to discriminate. However, researchers' understanding of "what is literature" is only the concept of modern people and the "final result" so far, not the understanding of literature in the period of origin, nor the understanding of writers and literary critics in various historical periods for more than 2,000 years. In this way, it will inevitably lead to some blind spots and some one-sidedness.

No matter in China or in the west, "literature", as the core concept of this subject, is a new concept that only appeared in modern times. Raymond Henry Williams, a British scholar, said in his book "Cultural and Social Vocabulary" that "literature" only appeared in English in the14th century, and its meaning was elegant knowledge gained through reading; The English Dictionary written by Johnson, the pioneer of English dictionary compilation, defines this word as "learning and writing skills", which is quite different from its academic connotation today.

The article "Literary Criticism" in the Encyclopedia Britannica of the United States says: "Although almost all literary criticism was written in the 20th century, the first questions put forward by Plato and Aristotle are still given priority." Here's the problem: since the word "literature" only appeared in recent hundreds of years, and the modern concept conveyed by this word only came later, in what sense can it be said to be "Plato's literary thought" or "Aristotle's literary concept"? Or we can think, in what sense can we say "Confucius' literary thought" or "Mencius' literary concept"? This problem, which has long been considered self-evident by many people, needs to be re-explored. We should start from the origin period, find the source of literary thought, and follow this to understand its subsequent evolution and transformation.

Carl XVI Gustaf (Swedish: Carl XVI Gustaf, full name Karl Gustav fulk Hubert,1April 30, 946-) pointed out in his "Philosophy of Literature": "The ever-changing literary style in the history of literature is the result of philosophical changes in all literature. Philosophers regard it as a philosophical work, and writers regard it as a literary history or literary theory work. A thin little book can have such a large capacity, which is worth pondering and studying. "

Slovak sinologist Marion Golec pointed out in his Introduction to the History of Modern Literary Criticism in China 19 17- 1930: "This book adopts unique structuralism and comparative literature methods, which excludes and deviates from the metaphysical elements of literary history and literary criticism."

Therefore, the above discussion on literature (Chinese) research and methodology shows that the main ideas of philosophy infiltration (structuralism and genetic methodology) are the main significance of studying literature-that is, the philosophy of literature.

Philosophy of Literature is of great reference value to the study of modern literary theory and literary history and related teaching work in China, and it can even be said that many things fill the gaps in related fields.

Chapter three: What is the significance of "literary philosophy" from the perspective of genesis?

The genetic perspective is very important for the study of "literary philosophy" and "literary criticism history". The study of literary philosophy in history tries to reproduce the situation that the object has disappeared. It is impossible to "copy" or "reconstruct" absolutely without distortion. What the narrative of "literary philosophy" can do in history is the dialogue between future researchers and predecessors. Since it is a dialogue, it can't be one-way, but two-way. We should not just talk, but also listen. We should break through many barriers to listen to the voices of our predecessors.

Writers have always been engaged in literary creation and writing under the ideological background of their respective times. Only by putting yourself in the other's shoes can we deeply understand why we engage in literary creation and literary research, why we choose and deal with themes, and how we choose and create styles and techniques, and make a reasonable explanation of the cutting-in angle of literary critics' theory and the meaning of the terms created.

In short, if we want to talk about the writings of the ancients, we must know their literary mentality, their literary concepts, and their origin and evolution. The intervention of structuralism and genetic perspective will help the study of literary history and literary history to avoid taking the present as an example, but to properly combine the investigation from today's theoretical standpoint with the original truth of the object.

The occurrence of human literary ideas has the same law, and the occurrence of literary ideas in different cultures has its special circumstances and some unique laws. Literature is a highly subjective spiritual activity. Every nation's literature has its own unique literariness, and the root of literary nationality lies in its different history of "literary philosophy".

The modern term "literature" was introduced into China from the west in the early 20th century. After a hundred years of twists and turns, scholars increasingly feel that the discipline framework originated from the West is out of tune with the local reality, and realize that China's literary thought with a long tradition cannot be cut off from the foreign framework, nor can it follow the ancient way of speaking intact. To construct a new theoretical system of local literature requires a clear understanding and scientific explanation of the historical process of the development of local literary concepts.

Therefore, the study of the history of "literary philosophy" is a necessary prerequisite for the innovation of contemporary literary history and literary theory research. The application of genetic method reflects the awakening and promotion of scholars' cultural local consciousness. Zhao Jinglai, a China scholar, published a Summary of the Research on the Legitimacy of China's Philosophy in the 6th issue of China Social Sciences in 2003, and discussed the issue of "the legitimacy of China's philosophy" in the domestic philosophy history circle. He put forward: "There are two things that need to be distinguished: first, the academics and thoughts that were later included in the philosophical category before philosophy was introduced into China, and second, the clear interpretation and development of those thoughts and academics in the name of philosophy after philosophy was introduced into China."

In the field of art history, it also discusses how to use the concept of "art" and its branches reasonably. For example, Wu Hong, a famous art historian and a professor at the University of Chicago, published an article "Impure Art" in the third issue of Reading magazine in 2006. He said: "The word' art' is a modern import with its special historical origin and significance. Whether it can be used to summarize China's traditional art is really worth rethinking.

Zhao Jinglai and Wu Hong's "Hua" are quoted to show that the efforts of China literature history and literature history discipline in this respect will open up new achievements.

The historical study of "literary philosophy" is not mainly etymology. Although the ancients did not have such a clear and accurate concept of literature as today, they had already used language (discourse) for aesthetic and artistic activities. When we say the ancient people's literary ideas, Plato and Aristotle, Confucius and Mencius, we mean the contents of their language (discourse) related to the literary activities we understand today; If it has nothing to do with the literary activities we understand today, even if their language (discourse) contains the word "literature", it does not belong to the discussion of the history of "literary philosophy"

Literature is produced in the evolution of human civilization, and it is the product of division of labor and differentiation. After a very long evolution, human aesthetic activities and artistic activities are separated from productive labor, witchcraft, sacrifice and games, and gradually become independent. Literature has also undergone a long-term evolution, gradually separated from the whole artistic activities, music and dance, and gradually became independent.

When it is not independent or very independent, the concept of artistic aesthetics lies in practical consciousness, religious theology and cultural education for cultivating future generations, and the concept of "literary philosophy" lies in the concept of artistic aesthetics. After literature has obvious independence, the concept of "literary philosophy" often exists in literary activities and their products. The clear expression of the concept of "literary philosophy" and the concepts of intellectuality and subjectivity of "literary philosophy" appeared after the high development of literature. To study the history of "literary philosophy", we need to sort out the different stages and forms of literary concepts.

For example, the concept of "observing astronomy" discussed in ancient China (Yi Xue) is a literary concept hidden in witchcraft, divination and sacrificial activities, while the concept of "observing human nature" in Confucianism is a literary concept hidden in ritual and music activities and early artistic activities.

The result of social division of labor is the opposition between workers and laborers, and the upper and lower classes of society have their own demands for literature. The upper-class workers have mastered the right to speak, and their literary views have left a lot of literary records. The literary view of the lower class workers lacks spokespersons when it breeds, and it is even more difficult to leave systematic records; However, this does not mean that the literary views of the lower classes have not affected the development and evolution of literary concepts. As far as the change of artistic taste is concerned, the power of the lower class is often greater than that of the upper class.

Hu Shi's History of Vernacular Literature records: "All new literature originates from the people. People's children, villagers and women, looking for marriage, singers and girls, singers and storytellers are all creators of new forms and styles in the history of literature. This is a general law in the history of literature, and it cannot be escaped. "

The literary forms created by the lower classes are adopted by the upper classes, but most of their literary interests and keen sense of literary forms have not been refined and systematically expounded theoretically. Researchers of "History of Literary Philosophy" need to do everything possible to explore and sort out the literary views of the lower classes. This kind of research is very difficult because of the lack of materials. In addition to literature retrieval, we can refer to anthropologists' field investigation methods and take the concept of folk literature revealed in today's folk literature and folk culture as circumstantial evidence. In this regard, there are still many specific academic work to be done.

"Poetry expressing ambition" runs through several stages of the emergence and development of "literary philosophy" and its various forms of "latent" and "obvious"; In primitive times, "the ambition expressed in poetry can only be the collective will", so the ambition expressed in poetry can also be the concept owned by the lower classes of society. Therefore, it is very appropriate to regard it as a "specimen" of China's ancient "literary philosophy". The meaning of "poetry expressing ambition" does vary greatly in different periods. In Shangshu Yaodian, poetry is on an equal footing with songs, sounds and rhymes, and there is no independent form. The twenty-seven-year poem of "xianggong" in Zuo Zhuan, Zhi Tao in Zhuangzi Tianxia and Xunzi's Ruxiao all expressed their own feelings. In these places, poetry expresses their wishes as a rhetorical way, elegantly expressing their thoughts and wishes. The popularity of this rhetoric proves that poetry can be separated from music and dance.

The separation and opposition between "ambition" and "emotion" of Han and Confucianism is the norm that makes poetry obey the ideology of ruling (right) class. From this, we can draw the conclusion that the concept of "poetry" in ancient China is a historical construction process. This is a discussion on the significance of "literary philosophy" and a good application of genetic method.

The research on the history of "literary philosophy" is not only a necessary prerequisite for the research and innovation of China's literary history and literary theory history, but also a solid foundation for the establishment and development of China's cultural tradition and literary spirit. Genetic methods need strict positivism and high speculation. Therefore, China's literary history and China's "literary philosophy" are academic fields worth cultivating.

Chapter IV: What is the academic significance of China's historical theory of "literary philosophy"?

In recent years, academic circles have paid more attention to Chinese neologisms as the key words of China's modern disciplines, trying to trace back the origin of these neologisms, to investigate the formation mechanism and development law of new concepts as the knot of modern China people's thinking, and to highlight the evolution track of China's modern ideology and culture. The method of "historical and cultural semantics" adopted in this study has been quite popular abroad. The masterpieces introduced to China include michel foucault's Archaeology of Knowledge, Raymond Henry Williams's Key Words: Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Danny Cavallaro's Key Words of Cultural Theory, Nigel laporte and Joanna O'Flynn's Key Concepts of Social and Cultural Anthropology, etc.

Note (supplement): Semantics-Semantics, a discipline that studies the meaning of words in natural language. You can also refer to the study of symbol interpretation in logical formal system. Semantics, also known as semantics, is a term involving linguistics, logic, computer science, natural language processing, cognitive science, psychology and many other fields. The research object of semantics is the meaning of natural language, in which natural language can be different levels of language units such as words, phrases, sentences and texts. Structuralist semantics developed from American-led structuralist linguistics in the first half of the 20th century, and its research content mainly lies in the meaning and structure of words, such as sememe analysis, semantic field, and the structural relationship between word meanings. Semantic research focuses on the system of language meaning expression, and does not involve specific applications.