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Recollection of Philosopher Feng
Youlan
By Wang Yi
PKU NEWS 2004--05—11
http://ennews.pku.edu.cn/news.php?s=84409422
PKU news, Beijing, May 11th, 2004: After a series of activities on the 90th
anniversary of the Philosophy Department of Peking University----―approaching the
gate of philosophy‖: 2004 philosophy culture day, a lecture on the recollection of
philosopher Feng Youlan was held on May 11th at Ying Jie communication center.
The lecture is held jointly by the League committee of the philosophy department and
its student union and graduate student union.
Early before the lecture, the big hall is crowded with students from different
departments of PKU as well as those from other universities. Even the aisles in the
hall were seated with people. At 7:00 p.m., the six honored guest presented on the
platform, among whom are the prominent physicist, the Nobel Prize winner Yang
Zhenning, our respectable writer Zong Pu - daughter of Feng Youlan, dean of the
Department of Art Studies Ye Lang, researcher Chen Zhanguo from China Social
Science Institution and two other professor from the Philosophy Department of PKU.
The dean of philosophy department Zhao Dunhua took charge of this lecture.
As the daughter of Professor Feng, Zong Pu first gave a wonderful speech. She
talked about her impression of his father and focused on the influence his father had
on her. When explaining how his father‘s philosophy study influenced her literature
study, she said that his father once wrote a preface for one of her book. In this
preface, his father suggested to her that one should read two kinds of books: one is
the books written by human and the other is the books without characters, the books
from heaven, which are about nature, society and life. He added that one could write
glorious articles if he read only about 3 to 5 pages of the books from heaven.
Then Yang Zhenning talked about his several contacts with Mr. Feng. Mr. Yang first
titled Feng Youlan as one of the greatest philosopher of China in the 20th century.
But during his speech, he also made some jokes, saying that Mr. Feng was actually
a stammerer, but who never lost in a debate. And this humorous comment aroused a
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