CHAPTER XX

After the landlord left, Sima Wanyan didn't talk to Ouyang Yunxi again, but walked around the room by herself, looking around at every detail in the room.

Judging from the layout of the house and the placement of furniture, the current house is not much different from the picture that Sima Yuanying sent to Sima Wanyan earlier, except that the tea tray has been changed from solid wood to black gold stone, from a complete set of purchased tea sets to their own tea sets, and there is an extra Diamond Sutra engraved on the bamboo slips on the wall.

Sima Wanyan felt like she was walking in her own home, she felt that she knew every detail of the house, knew where to turn, knew where the furniture was placed, and even knew what type of books were placed in each row of the shelves.

Sima Wanyan walked straight to the bookshelf in the bedroom, looking at the pile of books on the ground in front of the bookshelf, she thought of Sima Yuanying sitting on the ground carefully looking at the books to find information, and unconsciously showed a shallow smile.

Sima Wanyan raised her head and carefully found that there was a book on the second floor of the leftmost bookshelf that was not completely stuffed into the shelf, compared to the books in this layer, the book seemed a little abrupt, and the spine was obviously protruding by nearly 1cm.

Sima Wanyan felt very strange, for Sima Yuanying, who had a high degree of obsessive-compulsive disorder, this was obviously not his style, in fact, Sima Wanyan himself was the same, as long as the books placed on the shelves must be placed neatly, and even the books on each layer should be as many books as the same size, even if the size is different, it must be placed in order from large to small.

Sima Wanyan looked at the other books on the shelves, and the other books were neatly arranged according to his style. Sima Wanyan looked back at the book, which was co-translated by Yang Limin and Zhu Shenggang, and written by American scholar Richard Tucker, "Theories of Natural Rights: Origin and Development", she is very familiar with this book, Sima Yuanying has introduced it to her many times, since last year, she has been particularly interested in rights issues, and has always wanted to study in depth.

Sima Wanyan felt more and more strange, and couldn't help but reach out and take out the book and flip through it casually. In the process of flipping, a few pieces of A4 paper fell out of the book, Sima Wanyan squatted down and picked up the papers, and found that they were full of things, so she sat directly on the ground and looked at them carefully.

This is a letter written by Sima Yuanying to Sima Wanyan, which is to exchange his views on rights issues with Sima Wanyan:

Wanyan:

Brother is sincerely happy that you can be so interested in the issue of rights, rights are not only the object of study of law, but also one of the basic categories of philosophy, our brothers and sisters can finally have a common topic, the following is my brother after reading a lot of information about rights issues, after careful thinking and summary of views, you have to read carefully.

In the history of rights theory and institutionalization, the study of rights theory has generally followed an approach of "from theory to practice and ultimately serving social practice". From the perspective of non-reverse knowledge-seeking, it can be briefly expressed as follows: whether it is the discussion of the institutionalization of new rights or the study of the formation process of the concept of rights, they are all based on social needs, guided by social needs, through the macro generalization of the social environment and the in-depth analysis of social problems, to abstract the theory of specific rights in various historical periods, and then adjust the cognition of rights suitable for the current social needs to solve the various rights problems faced by the current society.

Historical materialism believes that social existence determines social consciousness and material base determines superstructure, so to a certain extent, this way of research is indeed the best way to find a rational explanation in the theory of rights that is most suitable for the law of social development and can best meet the needs of society. However, as a philosophical thought that explores the ontology of the world, historical materialism can only provide ideological guidance for human beings in the process of concrete participation in social activities, and the rationality of the guiding ideology itself cannot be taken for granted to deduce the rationality of specific practical behaviors. On the one hand, the so-called philosophical guiding ideology is nothing more than the rational experience that human beings have summarized in a highly abstract manner after the accumulation of countless social experiences, which is essentially a condensation of human rationality.

On the other hand, under the premise of being functional, human rationality will inevitably be limited by subjective and objective aspects in the process of participating in social activities, which means that human beings can only say that the guiding ideology that has been highly abstracted and summarized by human beings after the accumulation of countless social experiences is the most reasonable for the current social society, but at the same time, it also means that human rationality is still difficult to touch all aspects of the problem under the guidance of the guiding ideology.

Therefore, Ge thinks that this kind of research approach to the theory of rights from theory to practice that ultimately serves social practice is the most reasonable research method, but at the same time, he also thinks that this kind of research method oriented by social needs is too utilitarian in a certain way. Overly utilitarian research is similar to logical reasoning, logical reasoning has a distinction between valid or invalid and true or false, and the premises and conclusions of a scientific logical reasoning must be true and valid, and only logical reasoning that is valid but not true can only be sophistry. And many times utilitarian research will always focus more or less on the validity of the research results.

Of course, this is not to say that utilitarian research methods are wrong, but that utilitarian research methods will prompt researchers to ignore those factors that are not highly related to social needs but have many meanings to the theory itself in the research process. Guan believes that when it comes to the study of rights theory, this research method may also have the problem that the concept of humanism is not deep enough or not enough to be considered. The objective world is a material world that has nothing to do with human beings, and the human world is a world constructed by human reason.

The so-called "humanism" is by no means only about exploring the role and value that human beings should play in society from the perspective of human subjectivity, but also includes the role and mode of operation of human reason in the process of concretely participating in social activities. The author believes that most of the research on the theory of rights has little to do with the discussion of human rationality, which may be due to the fact that on the one hand, human rationality and the issue of rights theory are not very relevant (or there is no need for in-depth discussion), and on the other hand, although all the knowledge required by human beings in the process of understanding and transforming the world fundamentally depends on abstract rationality, at the same time, human beings also have an instinctive tendency to reject abstract things.

Therefore, I think you can try to change the research method of the inherent discussion of rights theory, focus on human rationality, pull the problem of rights theory from practice back to the most basic theory, and try to solve the following problems:

If the institutionalization of rights is to say that it is indeed possible and necessary (although it is indeed possible and necessary), then the role of human reason in it and how does human reason concretely participate in human social life?

Remember, you must read this letter carefully, read it a few times, and when my brother has time, my brother will test you!

Sima Yuanying

July 2017

Sima Wanyan was even more puzzled after reading the letter, Sima Yuanying basically told her about the content of the letter, although it was all said in a piecemeal manner, and such a systematic text was not formed, but it was not enough to write a letter to her to summarize and say it again.

Moreover, although the letter is handwritten, there are not so many typos, and many of them are not even typos, it looks like they were written by mistake in the process of writing, it is really hard to imagine that such a strict person as Sima Yuanying would make such a basic mistake.

Although Sima Wanyan felt very strange, she still folded the letter in half, folded it and put it into the book, put the book back on the shelf, and left the bedroom.

When Sima Wanyan was about to walk to the bedroom door, she suddenly turned back and took out the book again. This book and the letter that Sima Yuanying wrote to her in it made her very puzzled, and she decided to take the book back and listen to Sima Yuanying's words to carefully read the letter again.

"Sister Yunxi, can I take this book with me?" Sima Wanyan left the bedroom and returned to the living room, holding "Theories of Natural Rights: Origin and Development" to Ouyang Yunxi.

"Of course you can, it's your brother's thing, of course you have the right to take it." Ouyang Yunxi looked at the book suspiciously, then looked at Sima Wanyan and continued, "It's just that what's so special about this book?" ”

"Well, my brother has introduced this book to me many times, and I have been interested in rights since last year, and my brother said that rights issues are also one of the basic categories of philosophy, so it has become a common topic for our brothers and sisters. I had just found this book on the shelf, so I took it out and looked through it, and found that there was a letter my brother had written to me. Sima Wanyan patiently explained.

"A letter to you?" Ouyang Yunxi was even more puzzled.

"Well, that's it." Sima Wanyan opened the book, took out the letter and handed it to Ouyang Yunxi and said, "This is my brother's views and summary of his views on rights issues written to me, I hope it can help me." Would you like to take a look? ”

"Can I see it?" In fact, Ouyang Yunxi especially wanted to see it, she always felt that this matter was a bit sudden, a little strange suddenly, but after all, it was a letter written by Sima Yuanying to Sima Wanyan, and she had to confirm it with Sima Wanyan again.

"Well, yes, there's no secret." Sima Wanyan generously put the letter in Ouyang Yunxi's hand.

Ouyang Yunxi opened the A4 paper a little embarrassed and read one carefully from front to back.

In the process of Ouyang Yunxi's reading, Sima Wanyan felt an inexplicable uneasiness in her heart, she couldn't tell what she was uneasy about, and she didn't know why she was uneasy, she only hoped that Ouyang Yunxi could read the letter quickly and then return it to her.

"What you top students write is so profound? I know all the words, but I can't understand them. After reading the letter, Ouyang Yunxi didn't find anything wrong, so she could only return the letter to Sima Wanyan, and even felt like she was in a hurry to go to the doctor.

Sima Wanyan struggled to control the uneasiness in her heart, took the letter handed back by Ouyang Yunxi, and put it back into the book.

"But there are a lot of typos."

Sima Wanyan smiled and didn't speak.

"Sister Yunxi, we estimate that we will return to Qianxi in a few days, and it will be useless for me to wait in Qianxi. So after thinking about it, I'll give you the key, and you may still need it. After a while, Sima Wanyan handed the key to Ouyang Yunxi and said sincerely.

"It's okay, then I'll keep it first, and then return it to the landlord when I'm sure I don't need it." Ouyang Yunxi took the key, and her heart was filled with satisfaction.

"Are you going to wait?" Ouyang Yunxi put the key into her bag, then raised her head and asked.

"No, I want to go back."

"Then let's go, I'll send you back."

"Thank you, Sister Yunxi."

Ouyang Yunxi touched Sima Wanyan's head and left the house rented by Sima Yuanying with her.

In the car, Sima Wanyan didn't take the initiative to talk to Ouyang Yunxi, Ouyang Yunxi thought that she might be reluctant to speak in sadness because she was in love, so she was embarrassed to disturb her.

In fact, although Sima Wanyan was touched by the scene, she was not in a sad mood, she just kept thinking about the letter that Sima Yuanying wrote to her, and she wanted to take out the letter and read it again, but there was a voice in her heart reminding her that she must not take out the letter now, and she must not read the letter in front of other people......