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以生命追求真理的人 作者：杨国庆
2015年春节，很多来尤西林老师家拜年的学生都发现，老师突然瘦了很多，头发也比以前白得更厉害了。毕竟尤老师已年届古稀，年前又体检查出糖尿病，可他的写字台上却依旧堆放着层层叠叠的书稿和信件，不知疲倦地工作。熟悉尤老师的人都知道，在他的日常生活中是从来没有节假日的，为了保持学术所必需的沉静，他宁愿与这个喧嚣的世界保持一种理性的距离。 During the 2015 spring festival, many students paying new year visit to their teacher, Prof. You Xilin, found he became thinner and grew more grey hairs. Although in his seventies and diagnosed with diabetes before the new year, he still worked tirelessly, as could be seen from the heaps of books, manuscripts and letters on his desk. Anyone who is familiar with Prof. You knows there is not any holiday or vacation in his life, for he would rather retain a reasonable distance with this crowded world, in order to preserve a state of serenity for his academic pursuit. 尤西林老师是陕西师范大学文学院教授，博士生导师，著名的美学和文艺理论专家。2009年，尤西林老师作为首席专家，承担了教育部马克思主义理论研究和建设工程“美学原理”教材专项的编写工作。六年来，教材编写七易其稿，尤西林老师曾他一月数次往返于京陕之间，为教材定稿不辞辛劳地奔走。尤西林说，教材不同于一般学术著作，一定要本着对后代负责的精神，每个概念都要力求严格准确，经得住时间的考验。2015年11月教材出版前，厚厚的书稿他已经校读多遍，书稿上每个关键概念的汉译后面都标注了外语词源，这项工作看似简单，但细细翻检核实起来，却是一件耗时费力的苦差。学生们很想为他分担一点，但这么多年以来，尤西林定下一条规矩，工作再忙，都不会让学生额外承担任何劳务。相反，对于学生的要求，他都会倾力相助，为他们的学习工作排除后顾之忧。 You Xilin is a professor and doctoral advisor of aesthetics and literary theory at School of Chinese Language and Literature of Shaanxi Normal University. Since 2009, Prof. You has been working as the leading expert in the compilation of the textbook 'Principle of Aesthetics', a key textbook developed under the Project of Research and Construction in Marxist Theory of the Ministry of Education. For six years, he worked on seven major revisions with other compilers, and even travelled between Xi'an and Beijing several times in a month. He says that textbooks, different than other academic works, must be accurate to every concept and every detail, able to withstand the test of time and responsible to readers of different generations. Before its publication in November 2015, he had proofread the manuscript multiple times. He noted foreign origins of every key concept in the textbook. This seemingly simple job proves to be painstaking and time-consuming. His students offered to do some of the work for him but they were declined, because he laid down a rule not to outsource his work to his students, no matter how busy he is. Quite the opposite, he would go through every trouble to help them when they were in need. 每次学生去看望尤老师，他很少客套和寒暄，最爱和大家聊学问，无私分享他的研究心得，学生往往在不经意间受到最深刻启发。一次谈到写一篇论文时涉及到计算机与人工智能方面的内容，他不仅专门查阅了大量有关人工智能的资料，还专门邀请一位西工大的数学博士帮他补习了高等数学。治学作文能“熟处见生”，每篇文章均力图在相关论域有所创新，这是和尤西林老师多年坚持的写作原则紧密相关的。他曾自述论文写作的两个原则，一是无创意不写，二是做学问不要赶时髦，要关注根本性问题。因此，他的论文常常是“十年磨一剑”，但一旦发现有其他相近的成果问世，便果断放弃发表，搁置深化等待进一步的突破。他也多次告诫学生“学术乃天下之公器”，“千万不要迷恋于发表”，研究中一定要耐得住寂寞，摒弃世俗功利的诱惑。 When visited by students, he rarely allows himself to be engaged in trivialities or small talk. Instead, he loves to talk about academic research, sharing his experience selflessly, which is often highly inspirational to students. Once he told a story about writing a paper concerning computer and artificial intelligence. He not only searched and read a lot about artificial intelligence, but also had a doctor in mathematics from Northwest Polytechnic University teach him advanced mathematics. Achieving creativity amid familiarity in doing research and writing articles is what Prof. You has been doing for years. He once wrote about the two principles of his essay writing: one is no writing without creativity and another is focusing on fundamental issues instead of following the fads. Many of his articles are the results of years of revision, yet he is ready to give them up for publication once he finds publication of similar research and wait till he has had substantial new findings after further work. He asked his students to stay patient and resist worldly temptations and warned them against obsession with publication, for 'Academic research is a tool for public service.' 德国大哲海德格尔曾用“在坟墓边缘还在孤独沉思”的人来评价十九世纪德国大教育家洪堡，尤西林老师很欣赏这句话，并视其为自己人生和学术的信条。 German educator Wilhelm von Humboldt was once referred to by German philosopher Martin Heidegger as a man 'pondering lonely by the side of grave before dying'. Prof. You is very fond of this reference and regards it as his motto of life and academic pursuit. 在他的书房里有一个很多抽屉的卡片盒，看过卡片的人都知道，每个抽屉里的积累的资料都可以写成一部大书。康德、马克思和海德格尔是尤西林最喜欢的哲学家，在没有电脑的时代，他竟然凭借手工为这些艰涩的大部头著作编制过索引，可见他对于经典著作的熟稔。但在他的论著中却很少见到对以上经典作家的直接研究，而更多的是通过多年理论沉潜，从人文科学学理深层抽绎和梳理出的“问题史”呈现——对马克思劳动观的更新与发展构成他数十年来美学与人文科学研究的核心主题，由此形成了他以人文科学原理融合文艺学、美学与宗教学的学术研究特色。作为当代坚持实践论美学的代表，尤西林老师的美学研究一方面发展了晚清以来“以美育代宗教”的思想，在强调了审美的社会存在论与现代性背景上，重建了当代中国美学的人文信仰维度； 另一方面，他以对美学的人文科学特性的反思为契机，撰写了《人文学科及其现代意义》、《人文科学导论》等一系列被视为开创与建设中国现代人文科学理论的代表性著作。 There is a big cupboard with many drawers full of cards in his study. People who have seen the cards know the materials collected in each drawers can be turned into a thick book. Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx and Martin Heidegger are his favorite philosophers. Before computers were available, he made index cards for their numerous works manually all by himself, which testifies his familiarity with these classics. However, readers can hardly find direct studies of these classic works, but rather the presentation of 'History of Questions' through decades of his exploration and analysis into the depths of humanist theories. The update and development of Marxist view of labor has become the core theme of his research in aesthetics and humanities, which turned into his research in theory of literature and art, aesthetics and religious studies integrated with humanistic principles. In his aesthetic studies, Prof. You, as a representative of contemporary practical aesthetics, has developed the idea of 'substituting religion with aesthetic education' which has been in existence since the late Qing Dynasty. He reconstructed the humanistic belief of contemporary Chinese aesthetics on the basis of stressing the social existence and modernity of aesthetics. Reflecting on the humanistic features of aesthetics, he wrote his classic works such as Humanistic Discipline and Its Modern Significance and Introduction to Humanistic Discipline, which have been regarded as pioneers in developing the theories of modern Chinese humanistic discipline. 对师大学子来说，尤西林老师不仅是一位严谨博学的大学者，更是深受广大学生爱戴的好老师。他在“陕西省级教学名师”的获奖寄语中谈到：“讲坛乃神圣之地。一代代教师以生命智慧融于此地，先师虽逝，音容相貌永在此地；一代代优秀青年的纯真目光汇聚于此地：社会让教师向这些最优秀的子女传道授业并进入他们的精神，这是最高的委托；社会让这些青年聆听人类最重要的思想与知识，这是最重大的传承。” For SNNU students, Prof. You is not only a erudite scholar, but also a great teacher they love and respect. In his acceptance speech, he wrote, 'Podium is a sacred place. It is where the lifelong wisdom of generations of teachers resides. Teachers will pass away but their impressions are here forever. It is where generations of brilliant young people look on to. Society has trusted teachers with the noble task of imparting knowledge and teaching skills to these young people, as well as entering their spiritual world. Society has also asked these young people to inherit these most valuable thoughts and knowledge.' 从教30余年来，尤西林正是以这种虔诚守护的态度扎根本科教学第一线，在神圣的讲坛上传道以美，育人以真。他不仅是师大课堂上最受学生欢迎的教师之一，也是西安地区跨校际间拥有旁听“粉丝”最多的教师之一。尤西林除了坚持为文学院本科生开设一般通论课，早在九十年代中期就开风气之先，为中国语言文学基地班开设“经典名著导读”课程，如今以此为基础孕育出的经典阅读教学模式，已成为师大文科学子精神交流的重要方式，在全国高校蔚然成风。此外，尤西林老师还多年坚持面向全校学生开设了《人文科学概论》通识课程，1997年以来，该课程讲授对象已涵盖文理工本科生与研究生十多个专业，听课人数迄今为止累计已逾3000人，并在清华大学、北京师范大学、香港中文大学、英国伦敦大学、德国汉堡大学等20多所国内外大学演讲。 During his thirty years career, Prof. You has taught aesthetics and truth on the sacred podium with his sincerity and reverence. He is not only one of the most popular teachers on SNNU campus, but also a teacher with numerous auditor fans from various universities in Xi'an. Apart from his general introduction courses for undergraduate students at the School of Chinese Language and Literature, he began to offer the course of Readings of Classic Works to the Base Class of Chinese Language and Literature since middle 1990s. This mode of teaching through reading classics has become an important way of spiritual communication among students of liberal arts majors at the university, and its influence has extended to many other universities as well. Since 1997, his general education course of the General Introduction to Humanities and Liberal Arts has had an attendance of more than 3,000 students from undergraduate to graduate students in about a dozen majors of humanities, social sciences, and science and engineering. He also gave speeches at more than 20 Chinese and overseas universities, such as Qsinghua University, Beijing Normal University, the Chinese University of Hongkong, University of London and University of Hamburg. 桃李不言，下自成蹊。近五年来，尤西林老师所指导的八位博士生在读期间有四位获得国家社科基金或教育部人文社科基金项目、两位获得宝钢教育奖、一位获百篇优博论文提名奖。在这些业绩背后有着更深的精神传承，全国首批国家级公共课《中国古代诗歌》主讲教授王红在微博上如此说：“我们是他的首届学生。二十多年流逝，早已过了容易崇敬他人的年龄，我与曾是同班同学的外子依然认为——尤老师是我们青年时代的精神导师之一，他对我们的影响一直及于今天。” Peaches and plums do not talk, yet the world beats a path to them. During the last five years, five of the eight doctoral candidates supervised by Prof. You have been granted China's National Social Science Fund or MOE's Humanities and Social Science Fund, two of them awarded the Baosteel Educational Prizes, and one was the nominee of the Top 100 Doctoral Dissertations.Speaking of the spiritual inheritance behind these achievements, Prof. Wang Hong, the instructor of Ancient Chinese Poetry - one of the first national level open courses, wrote on her microblog: 'We were his first students. More than twenty years on, we have long outgrown the age of worshiping somebody easily, but my husband - and my classmate - and I still believe that Prof. You is our spiritual leader in our youth, and his influence on us is still active.' 古希腊哲学专家、中国人民大学聂敏里教授是尤西林老师的本科学生，多年暑期登门看望老师，并如此致意恩师：“人们以学术为职业，您以学术为生命。人们以概念分析真理，您以生命追求真理。” Prof. Nie Mingli, an expert of ancient Greek philosopher at Renmin University of China, was an undergraduate student of Prof. You. He paid visits to his mentor and said, 'Some people regard academic pursuit as their career, but you treat it as your life. Some analyze truth with concepts, but you pursue truth with your life.'
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