Hegel made it very clear in his opening speech at the University of Berlin that the University of Berlin is the spiritual center of Germany, and the central center of this spiritual center is the department of philosophy, which we should give high status to because it is a place of truth, a sanctuary. I am a philosophical man, and I am a little suspected of it. In fact, philosophy is not need to sell, it is Jiang Taigong fishing - willing to take the bait. How many of us are willing to take the bait in Fudan University?
A lot, but it didn't bite in the end. We have seen such a phenomenon, that is, Fudan University students are very smart, all like philosophy courses, but when they change their major, they resolutely do not choose philosophy. In other words, everyone is in love with philosophy, but never married to it. I said it was good, because everyone is married to philosophy, philosophy it tired? Everyone should have the cultivation of philosophy, but not everyone should become a philosopher, if everyone is looking at the stars, no one to dig a well. Doers are needed, and so are talkers. No one can be a talker. No one can be a doer without a talker. No nation can be a talker. There is a saying, "It is better to act than to sit and talk." This is the spirit of our national practice. But we often have to sit back and talk. In the mid-1980s, I went back to Fudan University from a publishing house to study philosophy as a postgraduate because of my attachment to Fudan University and philosophy. One of my undergraduate classmates invited me to Shenzhen because he set up a very successful company in Shenzhen after graduation. He was very happy and hoped that I could visit him and see his achievements. I was also very happy. At that time, Shenzhen was a special economic zone attracting national attention. What we all know and what you may recall here is a piece of history for you. In the mid-1980s, shortly after the start of the reform and opening-up policy, the speed of building International trade buildings in Shenzhen was one storey a day, which was then known as the "Shenzhen speed". There is a slogan put forward by Shenzhen people: time is money, efficiency is life. I came to the streets of Shenzhen and saw a large placard with two lines: Talk harms the country, and action revitalises the country. I started and took it personally. For I am the one who studies the knowledge of empty talk in the philosophy classroom and study, and empty talk may harm the country. So when I came back from Shenzhen, I thought about it very seriously. When all the Chinese people have shifted their focus to economic construction, what reason do I have to stay in my study studying idle knowledge? It is the people who support me, right? Should I go into the sea too? As a result, each man has his own life, and my life is my character, I have never left the philosophical study at last, for nearly thirty years now. My feeling is that today the nation wants to talk. Philosophy is one of the oldest learning, and has long been the loneliest in China. But I, a researcher of solitary philosophy, have often been summoned from my study in recent years. Where should I go? Talk philosophy to entrepreneurs and government officials, and they love it. I think it's a good thing. Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, there has been one sentence that has governed the country: development is the absolute principle. However, the truth about development itself is to be developed through the doctrine. In fact, the scientific development view should be based on the philosophical development view. A nation builds its spiritual center in only two places. One place is the temple of religion: the temple of Christianity, the temple of Buddhism, which is the spiritual center of a nation. Another venue is the university. Human society has experienced a process of modernization. As soon as capital was born in Europe, the process of modernization began. With the development of the modernization of human society, the spiritual world created by the former place, the temple of religion, was gradually lowered into the field of private life and became a private matter. It began to separate from the ideology of the state. The latter, then, becomes all the more important. The latter kind of place becomes the shaper of a nation's public consciousness and public spirit, which is the university. But things have changed again. With the development of modernization in an increasingly comprehensive way, the so-called "condition of modernity" has come into being. In the modern situation we are in today, the latter kind of place, namely the university, is gradually withdrawing from the spiritual world and gradually evolving into the accumulator and transmitter of public knowledge and practical technology.
The modern state of the university today marginalizes philosophy from its central position of spiritual center. With its marginalization, can a university remain the spiritual center of a nation? It's hard to keep. Problems of a philosophical nature are unavoidable for every student studying in a university. There are many freshmen here today, so you can't avoid philosophical questions. You have to ask yourself: who are we as students entering Fudan University today? Are we future competitors in the workplace? Are we the best in some future profession? Are we in the university, a group of rushing to the above goal? Do we come to the university for a visit to the future workplace, to some future career success? If so, what does college life mean to everyone here? I think this question should be raised.
