Professor Cao Xuan Huy - an outstanding philosopher of the 20th century

According toDictionary of Literature(New edition), an entry by Professor Hue Chi, Professor Cao Xuan Huy was born in 1900 in Thinh My village, Cao Xa commune, Dien Chau district, now Dien Thinh commune, Dien Chau district, Nghe An province, into a prominent intellectual family of the Nguyen dynasty. His grandfather, Cao Xuan Duc (1843-1923), was a renowned educator, cultural figure, historian, and writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Starting as a district official, he rose through the ranks through talent and virtue, holding positions such as Governor-General, Minister of Education, Privy Council Grand Minister, Regent Grand Minister, and Director of the National Historical Institute. Cao Xuan Duc authored and presided over many important historical, geographical, legal, educational, and cultural works, and composed many outstanding literary works for posterity. His father, Cao Xuan Tieu (1865-1939), also held the position of Minister and Director of the National Historical Institute of the Nguyen dynasty. Professor's maternal aunt was the female writer Cao Ngoc Anh (1878-1970), a modern Vietnamese writer who supported the Dong Du movement and the Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc school, resisting the French, and opened a school teaching literature and martial arts to women in Hanoi, which was closed by the French colonialists. Her poetry and writings are filled with the melancholy of a people who have lost their country.

Professor Cao Xuan Huy (1900-1983)

In his childhood, following family tradition, Professor Cao Xuan Huy honed his skills in classical Chinese and Confucianism in his grandfather's Long Cuong library in his hometown, alongside studying French. At fifteen, he took the provincial examination in Nghe An but failed. He then attended the Franco-Vietnamese High School, passing the Thành chung exam in 1922 before enrolling in the prestigious Indochina College of Education, graduating in 1925 and teaching at Hue National High School.

In 1926, at the intellectually mature age of 26, Professor joined the Tan Viet Revolutionary Party. In 1927, he was arrested by the French colonial authorities, dismissed from his teaching position, and exiled to Lao Bao, then transferred to Nghe An prison, and released in 1929. He married and devoted himself to writing and research, but his work was not successful. However, during those six years, he also contemplated the essence of Chinese and Eastern thought and philosophy. In 1934, he went to Bien Hoa and then Saigon to teach at Paul Doumer School and Chan Thanh School. In 1938, he returned to Hue to teach and devoted himself to studying Lao Tzu, quickly becoming renowned as a "Taoist scholar." He contributed essays to the educational journal Revue Pesdagogique in Hue.

From left to right: Professor Cao Xuan Huy, critic Hoai Thanh, Professor Dang Thai Mai

Following the successful August Revolution of 1945, Professor was invited to teach Eastern Philosophy at the newly established University of Vietnam. As the Franco-Vietnamese War escalated, Professor returned to Dien Chau from 1946 to 1949 to serve as the principal of the Nguyen Xuan On private high school, training talented individuals for the free zone of the resistance. In 1949, Professor was a teacher at the Huynh Thuc Khang specialized high school and also a philosophy professor for the first Faculty of Literature class opened in Zone IV. From 1951 to 1954, Professor taught Philosophy at the Vietnam University preparatory school opened in Thanh Hoa. After the victory at Dien Bien Phu, Professor was assigned to teach Eastern Philosophy, Logic, and Psychology in both the Faculty of Literature and the Faculty of Education. In 1956, when Hanoi University was established, Professor worked in the Faculty of Literature. In 1957, Professor Cao Xuan Huy was transferred to teach psychology at the Faculty of Literature, Hanoi Pedagogical University. In 1959, the Institute of Literary Studies was established, and Professor Cao Xuan Huy was one of its first members. In 1965, Professor Cao Xuan Huy was appointed principal professor of the first undergraduate class in Chinese studies under the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. From 1970 to 1974, Professor Cao Xuan Huy served as a member of the Han Nom Committee, under the Vietnam Social Sciences Committee. He was consistently invited as a visiting professor by both Hanoi University and Hanoi Pedagogical University, continuously training generations of students. Professor Cao Xuan Huy officially retired in 1974 but continued to teach Han Nom classes for the Faculty of Literature, Hanoi University. He passed away in 1983 in Ho Chi Minh City.

Professor Cao Xuan Huy and his students (archived)

Professor Cao Xuan Huy left behind a relatively small but exceptionally insightful body of work. Throughout his life, the Professor was a dedicated educator, tirelessly training talented individuals for the revolution, the nation, and the regime. Later, in 1995, generations of his students compiled his materials and lectures into a comprehensive publication.Eastern thought, suggests points of referenceIn addition, he also has research works, edits, and annotations on Le Quy Don and Nguyen Truong To.

The accumulation of the Cao Xuan Huy phenomenon can be seen in the following aspects:

Firstly, he inherited innate intelligence from his family lineage, rigorously trained in the style of classical Eastern scholarship, immersed in an academic atmosphere, and surrounded by a family library with an abundance of books and documents. The research and data generalization style inherited from a family that had served as the Director of the National Historical Institute for two generations facilitated the early development and shaping of the Professor's knowledge and intellect. His academic background and self-cultivation formed the foundation for his outstanding thinking.

However, many intellectual families possess both scholarly traditions and rigorous training. The second factor that shaped Professor Cao Xuan Huy was his early exposure to Western thought and philosophy. This provided him with a solid foundation for confidently pursuing his research on philosophical metaphysics.

But both of those things are also possessed by many. The third is the choice of the rich and complex Eastern philosophy, difficult to interpret, especially Buddhism and Taoism, the two most advanced and legitimate philosophical systems that shaped the Eastern worldview, as a point of reference for comparison with the West. This choice was early and unique, full of difficulties because not everyone had the opportunity to delve deeply into it.

The fourth thing that shaped Professor's character was his fervent patriotism, his refusal to accept being enslaved by a foreign power. Professor joined the Tan Viet Revolutionary Party early on, fighting against the French, and later steadfastly sided with the resistance movement to build a democratic republic and defend the homeland.

The fifth thing that defines Professor Cao Xuan Huy's character is his revolutionary ideology. Born and raised in a family of prominent feudal intellectuals, but like many intellectuals of the early 20th century, he quickly absorbed the light of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity of the French bourgeois revolution and later the dialectics of Karl Marx. Professor Cao Xuan Huy's ideology is revolutionary in academia and in the practical teaching of philosophy and culture.

The sixth point is that the morality and character of the educated person are taught tirelessly in the most difficult conditions of war and economic life, maintaining the composure of someone who possesses supreme knowledge to think and understand the times.

These six qualities, a convergence that doesn't always occur, made Professor Cao Xuan Huy, along with Professor Tran Duc Thao, two of the most outstanding philosophers, possessing the clearest and purest philosophical thinking in Vietnam in the 20th century, revered by intellectuals and acknowledged by scholars worldwide. At that level, there are only two!

It is necessary to mention the unique and outstanding philosophical ideas of Professor Cao Xuan Huy, namely his philosophical monograph completed in 1958, which his students later titled when it was published.Holistic and particularistic – Two divergent paths in Eastern and Western philosophy.

Professor Cao Xuan Huy and staff of the Institute of Literature (archival photo)

Without a profound understanding of Western philosophy, it's impossible to make such an early discovery without a thorough grasp of Eastern philosophy. Professor Cao Xuan Huy has touched upon the most fundamental and highest level that abstract thinking, a general philosophical thought, can reach in a comparison between East and West. For Western philosophy up to the mid-20th century, as well as our current general understanding of philosophy, the two categories of Existence and Consciousness, and the relationship between them, remain the two supreme categories of philosophical thought. Idealist or materialist philosophy is tested by this touchstone. A dualistic way of thinking is established from its very roots. However, with Taoist philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, and the Confucian theory of social governance (which, of course, has a necessary historical relationship with the two philosophies mentioned above), the issue seems to go beyond that. These philosophies seek to reach the ultimate understanding of both Existence and Consciousness, and concepts such as Non-Existence, Form and Emptiness, Reality and Illusion, etc., emerge from this relationship of ultimate unity. It is both monistic and dualistic. Consciousness is not merely a reflection of Existence, but is itself an Existence, existing objectively as Existence itself. And both Existence and Consciousness, not only interacting universally, but also operating according to universal laws that both Buddhism and Taoism call the Tao.Common PathIt operates eternally like the most universal laws, in perpetual, inseparable interaction. And thus, it attains the nature of TOTALITY in philosophy. Lao Tzu replied to Confucius:

"The Way that can be spoken of is not the eternal Way. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. Nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. Named is the mother of all things."What you might call the Way, as you think, is not the eternal Way as I conceive of it! Similarly, what you want to know about Name is not the ordinary name as I understand it; it's the act of naming, the manifestation of what is manifested. Before human consciousness, everything was nameless. But once consciousness and naming occurred, it categorized Existence to help us become aware. Regarding ExistenceTaoism begins with such propositions to move towards the ultimate, total, and universal. Perhaps the path of modern natural science is progressing towards explaining the absolute, fundamental harmony of the primordial universe. The total and the particular interact in reference to arrive at a complete understanding of the universe.

Professor Cao Xuan Huy's lessons continue to inspire generations of Vietnamese intellectuals. To this day, writing about the Professor is merely a futile attempt to measure the sky with a stick.