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Scholarship is mainly about interpreting texts. For emphasis, it can be said that scholarship is mainly about interpreting texts with the help of some technique, although, according to my understanding of “interpretation” and “text”, the phrase “with the help of some technique” is redundant.

What is a text? In my opinion, the typical text in a narrow sense is a literary work, especially a philosophical work. Social organizations, rituals, historical relics, etc. are also texts. Ancient works of art can also be texts. [The deviation of the meaning of text in Western languages, the transformation of its Chinese translation, and the different Chinese translations such as "text", "text", "article", and "text" are concepts with very different orientations. These are all very interesting topics.]

Material natural events are not texts. Correspondingly, empirical science is not academic. Texts are those things that are inherently thoughtful and reflective, and are themselves an expression of the mind.

Our daily conversations, newspaper articles, and works of art are generally not texts. Texts are things that need to be interpreted, that is, things that require some kind of technology to understand. I can compare texts to foreign languages ​​or ancient texts. I can't understand them directly, or I can't understand them very well, so I need to translate them. Academic work is like translation. Therefore, we can see two characteristics of texts. One is the interval of time and space. Articles in newspapers are not typical texts, but Analects and Zhouli are. The second is the lack of intuition. Although prehistoric sculptures in East Africa can be interpreted as texts, they are not typical texts compared to literary works, because we can intuitively understand them without any technology. Needless to say, there is no clear boundary between being able to understand directly and not being able to understand directly, but there is a general difference between the two.

Myths, rituals, etc. are the most important texts for anthropologists, but they are not texts for the people who live in that mythological tradition and seriously follow those rituals.

Interpreting texts requires skills and is a troublesome task, so why should we bother to interpret texts? Isn't it good to chat, read newspapers, and watch TV dramas? Someone asked a mountaineer why he climbed Mount Everest, and he replied: Because it is there. The text is there, and a distant life world is solidified in it. It is an attractive undertaking to re-expand that life world so that the life world we are in can be referenced. Without the mutual reference of many worlds, reality would be quite narrow. Simply put, interpreting the Three Hundred Poems, interpreting the Zhou Li, and interpreting myths have brought us imagination and expanded our living space. Chen Yinke's "Biography of Liu Rushi" re-expands a life world for us by interpreting the classics and poems of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Comparing with the life forms of primitive people, we can know that one of the characteristics of the so-called enlightenment era or civilization era in the past two or three thousand years is to interpret texts, and people understand reality through the mutual reference of many worlds.

The original intention of engaging in academic research is to revitalize the life forms and thoughts condensed in the text through interpreting the text. But since interpreting texts requires technology, the study of interpretation technology itself can become a career. Elementary schools in the past were typical of this kind of work. [Pure interpretation technology, explaining the text and characters, explaining the text and characters, and textual research. Therefore, academic work can be roughly divided into two major parts, of course, these two major parts overlap. ]

Empirical research, theoretical work in empirical science, artistic creation, writing a philosophical book, all these require technology. Doodling can also be an artistic activity, but what is drawn is generally not a work of art. Thinking before speaking, being eloquent, and being able to sing and dance well do not produce works of art, they are part of direct life. Works generally refer to the fruits produced with the help of some technology. Works contain technology, so creating works and academic work have something in common. In a similar sense, theoretical construction work in empirical science can be regarded as academic work in a broad sense.

However, the technique of creating works is different from the technique of interpretation. Architects need a lot of techniques to design a building, but we can appreciate and appreciate it without learning techniques. Classical artists are all masters of technology, but most classical works do not require the technique of interpretation. In principle, we should distinguish between the technique required to create works and the technique required to interpret texts. Most good novelists are not academic experts. They rely on observation, thinking, and exploration of life, and master the skills of writing. The technique of creating works is not called academic, but art.

Most important texts are not the result of academic work, such as the Three Hundred Poems, Zhuangzi, Preface to the Red Cliff, and the Declaration of Human Rights. [The Golden Lotus, Quiet Flows the Don, However, for philosophy or other works to take shape and find a common language, a certain amount of academic work is needed. Traditional Chinese thinkers and most Western thinkers are also scholars and intellectuals, which is different from the Jewish monopoly on the medical profession. ] The relationship between various types of works and the interpretation of texts is sometimes tighter and sometimes looser. It is rare to see a philosophical work that has nothing to do with the interpretation of the texts of predecessors. [This is mainly because the core part of philosophy cannot be fully expressed in natural language, but must rely on concepts in the history of philosophy. Concepts in the history of philosophy are different from technical concepts in empirical science. The meaning of the former is determined by its historical inheritance, while the meaning of the latter depends on empirical testing. ] [While thinking about things from the direct life world, we connect them with various doctrines and concepts. Why do we have to connect? Why not use natural language completely? This is because philosophical language is originally a language that is being used. Long-term practice has shown that it is suitable for discussing philosophical issues, that is, talking about the reflection level of direct life. Those things that are considered unique to me are usually not so unique, at least not so unique in the sense of image. You see red and he also sees red, but your image at the philosophical level is very unique. Precisely because of this uniqueness, we have difficulty understanding it, so we need to build a common language and use it when we can so that we can understand your unique way of speaking.

Externally, academia provides a kind of test. If you do well in things that are understandable to the public, then I will be interested in reading your unique words. Otherwise, I am unwilling to risk wasting time reading things that are not easy to understand. One aspect of public language is the limitation of the times. For example, I can understand the bourgeoisie, feudal society, and major contradictions, but I still have to say that they are not appropriate expressions, wrong terms, unclear concepts, etc. Of course, we all speak in modern language, and it is an important talent to distinguish which words are vital and which are poor. Chen Yisheng is very good at expressing ambiguous things clearly, but he is not good at this point. However, the relationship between philosophers and interpreting texts is also different. For example, Heidegger and Gadamer rely more on interpreting texts, while Husserl and Wittgenstein do not.

Heidegger

Correspondingly, the textuality of philosophical works is generally stronger than that of works of art. However, from the creator's original intention, he is creating works, not texts. Even if the audience he targets is only a small circle, he still strives for direct understanding and stimulates direct dialogue in this small circle. From the audience's perspective, deep reading habits, broad education, etc. can help him understand the work, but he does not need to make a lot of technical preparations. [Philosophical works require readers to have a high level of comprehension, patience, etc., and, due to the historicity of the concepts mentioned above, certain academic preparations are also required.]

But nowadays, it is fashionable to regard contemporary works as texts. This may be a distortion of the nature of works, or it may reflect some profound transformation of our times. How to understand this transformation is up to the experts. But one thing seems obvious, that is, the current academic system has, to a certain extent, promoted this transformation. Scholarship is the raison d'etre of the academy of literature. [Creation does not necessarily require academy study, but it is only beneficial for creators to enter the academy to the extent and in cases where scholarship is beneficial to creation.] Only by regarding works as texts can professors gain the authority to understand works. According to the standards of traditional works of art, contemporary art, poetry, and film are intertwined in daily life and have basically no textual nature. No special skills are required to understand them. I personally think that good works today are still like this, while some cutting-edge literary and art critics have exaggerated their textual nature to an extreme extent. In my opinion, this is one of the sources of contemporary pseudo-scholarship and one of the areas where pseudo-scholarship is most harmful. We could have participated in the discussion of works of art on a much more plain and interesting interface, so that works of art and life are more closely integrated. However, if we do not make the discussion about the works very academic, how can we live up to the title of professor and the solemn university classroom? It seems that no matter how sincerely you feel and think seriously, as long as you do not have their academic training, you will not understand a song or a movie. Judging from common sense, you are not worthy of participating in the discussion of art and thought. Perhaps, contemporary works should not be studied in colleges, not because they are not important enough or not qualified for college research, but because professors are not the preferred audience for these works. Even if we have to regard these works as college homework due to various complex reasons, we should also understand that they are not typical texts and avoid using uniform "academic standards" to control the study and discussion.

Probably in line with the trend of interpreting works as texts, there is also a trend among contemporary artists to produce works as texts, that is, when the works are produced, they are made so that they cannot be directly understood or read, and require some kind of technology to interpret. Artists seem to be creating not for their friends, but for art history. I don’t quite understand the deep mechanism of this transformation, but my direct feeling is that the textualization of artistic creation is very sad.

In a tradition that takes truth as a given, academia becomes the main place to seek truth. [The main spiritual activity, or the place where truth occurs.] People today no longer hold this view of truth, and the status of academia has also declined. [At the same time, empirical scientific theories, general philosophical works, etc. are also included in the scope of academia to make up for the loss and expand the influence of academia.] If it is said that even in the past, academia was not the preferred way to seek fame and fortune, now it requires a deeper determination to pursue academia as a career. Even the academic masters of the past often compare the "strange intoxication that is laughed at by outsiders" required for academic work with religious feelings [Weber's words]. Young people who are determined to engage in academic work often use this to motivate themselves. Goethe once said that whoever engages in science and art also has religion. If he is right, academia is not just like religion, it is originally a religion. But we don't need to blindly understand religious feelings in a sacred and noble way. In Weber, especially in Goethe, religion as science and art is different from religion that is "needed" because there is no science and art. When engaged in science and art, no matter how noble and profound your work is, you should never make it a sacrifice, because that is not beneficial to academics. People engaged in academics, like people engaged in other careers, first find their careers interesting and fun.

Weber

If, as I understand it, only through academic work can we reopen the lost world of life and unfold the great ideas that have solidified, then academic research is undoubtedly still an important spiritual activity and a major source of civilization enrichment. [Chen Anying is mostly right about the decline of academic status. However, I do not agree with the view on academic value. I think the humanistic value of modern science is extremely limited, and even fundamentally questionable. Is it richer than the 18th century? Science has enriched the entertainment life of the masses through technology - enriched it? But TV dramas, video games, - there is still a lot to think about further. ]

But personally, young people today who choose academics as their careers may feel that their lives are too hard. Zhu Xi was engaged in academics at that time, and his life was also hard, but he secretly hoped to be famous in the court and the public, and from time to time he could really become the emperor's teacher or vice premier. Moreover, other temptations in today's world are even more complicated. Young people look at the world and inevitably feel that it is colorful. In contrast, academic life is too hard. However, in this regard, the difference is often exaggerated. When you enter the so-called daily life, most of the colorful colors will fade. Diplomats and actors are full of energy under the spotlight, but their daily lives are sometimes more boring than ordinary people. [Any activity contains a lot of dirt, or hardship, etc. One of the noble activities.] On the other hand, if you take academics as your career, you must be prepared for a lifetime of hardship, but lofty spiritual activities have their own rich and attractive features. That kind of inner calmness and joy is also the most important pursuit of the human heart. [Academics are a job that requires high IQ and hard work. 】In my opinion, perseverance in doing something is an extremely important quality. Looking around, being cynical about the world, and being frivolous cannot compare to it.

There is another source of young people's suspicion of the academic path, that is, they think that academic work is just a bunch of technology, far away from the living form of thought, misleading themselves and deceiving others. I think this kind of self-favoring and self-denial is suspicious in both aspects. On the one hand, there is a misunderstanding of academic work, taking pseudo-academics as academic samples. On the other hand, young people feel that their thoughts are connected to their bones and blood, and have great vitality, which is simply incomparable with those old and decayed thoughts buried in books. Youth makes people envy, there is no doubt about it, but when it comes to the vitality of thought, young people tend to directly regard their enthusiasm, inspiration, and longing as formed thoughts. In a group of youthful passion, every thought becomes fresh and full. After this passion gradually ebbs, he will most likely find that those thoughts are not better than those of his predecessors, and most of them are not very innovative and quite pale. In order to keep the potential vitality of thoughts away from the body and to breed new and full life at any time, a lot of hard work is required, which is no less difficult than resurrecting condensed thoughts through interpreting texts. [It is useful to think of the disembodied mind as a plasma serum, which once received its nourishment from the body but now exists in the form of a "pure blood" and is used to re-energize life when the time is right.]

The relationship between academics and thought has been a frequently discussed topic in recent years. The two concepts are often not symmetrical. Thought is something that happens everywhere, but academics are the work of a few experts. In a way, the two are closely related: to condense the thoughts in life into works, it usually requires certain academic training. On the other hand, the ultimate goal of academic work is to re-present the life world condensed in the text and to revive the thoughts condensed in the text as the thoughts of that living world.

A person can engage in academic work or strive to create ideological works. Some people who engage in academic work focus on interpreting the meaning of texts, while others focus on the general techniques of interpretation. Some people who create ideological works are closer to academic traditions, while others are further away from traditional texts. These are originally determined by each person according to his or her own abilities, interests, environment, etc. I don't see why we should describe our own positioning as the most legitimate one and belittle the choices of others. If the motivation of being self-righteous and not others is too strong, it will prevent us from clarifying the concepts of academics and thoughts, and therefore prevent us from opposing pseudo-academics and preventing us from seeing through superficial works that pretend to be profound. Over the years, pseudo-academics have been rampant, and even young people have developed an aversion to all academic work. [Another part of the aversion to academics comes from pseudo-academics and the self-righteousness of academics. Chen Anying seems to be arguing that this contempt comes from the decline of academic status, but this should not be something that should generate aversion and contempt. ]

A large number of pseudo-academics are such things: they have mastered certain interpretation techniques, but have no sensitivity to the ideas contained in the text. They interpret and interpret again and again, and the procedures meet academic standards, but no ideas are revived from foreign lands. In primary academic training, this may be tolerable, but calling such things academic works is not deliberately destroying the reputation of others' academics? Calling such things pure academics and academics for the sake of academics is purely misattributed. Pure academics refer to academic work that is as far away from the reality as possible, and it is definitely not blind operation that is separated from academic purposes. These things are not so-called "pure technical research". As mentioned earlier, a large part of academic work is pure technical research, which means that such research promotes/transforms interpretation techniques, which is the work of technical increment or technical innovation. This kind of work has nothing in common with taking ready-made interpretation techniques and operating them randomly. Unfortunately, most of what is now called "academic papers" are such things.

Another type of pseudo-academic is the special "Six Classics Annotations". Originally, if a person develops a set of ideas and is willing to make them public, he can write a book to tell us what he thinks, but many people want to make their own ideas look like Confucius's ideas, Nietzsche's ideas, or someone else's ideas, as if they are the conclusions reached by in-depth interpretation of Confucius and Nietzsche. "Six Classics Annotations" could be seen as a rebellious attitude against the rule of only annotating the classics, but in our era, you can talk about whatever you want, so why bother to pretend to annotate the classics? Because only the things that are interpreted are academic, and only things that are academic are decent. [Why don't you directly discuss the life impulse you understand, why start with "ability"? This kind of "Six Classics Annotations" is mostly to use the banner of a tiger skin. Generally, academic papers are set at a higher level, inducing authors to consciously or unconsciously imitate the writing style of papers. Perhaps there is a weaker defense, which is to teach students to learn to write papers in form first. But this is not a good teaching method, because the teacher himself does not understand the nature of the paper, and he cannot distinguish when he is teaching the form and when he is teaching the content. You think that this is what Heidegger meant, but this is not much help, because experts may prove that Heidegger did not mean this, and there are often standards here. This kind of commentary on the Six Classics is harmful to me. It does not expand our imagination and life world. One thing is still one thing, but it creates the illusion of two things. 】【There is another kind, that is, "ability" inspires you. You don't have such an enthusiastic statement about the impulse of life, and the concept of "ability" has become the inducement of some of your new ideas. This is the essay writing of the impression. I don't care whether these two concepts have a conceptual connection, but they have a connection in terms of stimulus. Impressionistic writing is not bad, but it is bad in dressing up the impression as an essay. The Preface to the Red Cliff is a good article, but it is not an academic paper. Now literature and other majors are completely differentiated. Therefore, if it is not a pure prose (such as Zhu Ziqing's Lotus Pond Moonlight is called prose), it must be written like a paper, although it is not a paper at all. 】

Academic works and ideological works are different from popular articles. Popular articles convey existing academic achievements and ideological insights to the public, but academic works and ideological works are required to be innovative. [Here, the listener and the reader are internally constructed. Think about who you are talking to.] This requires you to imagine your readers to be smarter. Academic articles must assume that your audience is an expert. In his test, is your interpretation a new interpretation, and is it generally valid? [You interpret energy as "infinite life impulse" and then start talking about life impulse. You have to think about whether the expert will point out that you are interpreting blindly.] Ideological works must assume that the audience is a thoughtful person. To him, what you say is a new idea. You can't just say "this is my thought". The uniqueness of a thought does not lie in whether it is yours or his. [Only your lover is interested in it because this thought belongs to you. She doesn't care about the thought, she cares about you as a person.]

There is much more that can be said about the current state of academia and its relationship with the university system. I believe that a conceptual reorganization of the term "academic" will make this kind of discussion more relevant and effective. However, the most effective way to improve the current dire situation is for people with real abilities to produce real academic achievements and real works of thought.