The relationship between theory and practice

The relationship between theory and practice is the core theme of classical philosophy. Hello, please login or register.

From: Leo Strauss

On Theory and Practice

Habermas

Ancient Greek philosophy gave two answers to the question of what role philosophy should play in broader education, politics and culture. This is mainly related to the works of Plato and Aristotle. Of course, with the change of philosophy's view of itself, the classic concept of the relationship between theory and practice will also change. In modern times, under the condition of more or less post-metaphysical thought, various contract theories and historical philosophies about natural law have contributed to the explanation of the relationship between theory and practice, which is different from that of ancient Greece. These main explanations are related to the names of Hegel and Marx. However, the political expectations once associated with these modern answers have been dashed. In my opinion, this disillusionment of expectations has produced two completely opposite reactions to this problem in our time. On the one hand, on the question of what philosophy can achieve, it turned to metaphysical and quasi-religious understanding. Heidegger and some of his post-modern followers are the representatives of this turn. On the other hand, the disillusionment of political ideals leads to such a sober philosophy, that is, under the framework of complex society, the public role of philosophy is relatively certain. In a culture dominated by science, in a society with divided functions-in which every member is more and more aware of the strong pressure of personal life-the above-mentioned moderate understanding of philosophy is accompanied by the specialization of various roles of philosophy.

Finally, we will discuss the more influential role of public intellectuals. Through this role, any effort to promote Kant's so-called "enlightenment" will be implemented in the field of public intellectuals.

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Plato's answer to the question about the possible practical influence of philosophy can be summarized as: nothing is more practical than the theory itself. Plato firmly believes that, in the final sense, it is very important to immerse yourself in meditation on the universe, both in religion and cognition. The process of soul shaping driven by theory provides a road to knowledge and redemption. Theory leads to the purification of the soul to save and transform the soul. Because when the soul rises to the height of thought, low-level interests and passions are excluded. In the process of rising to a rational grasp of ideas, the soul is freed from the bondage of matter and from the imprisonment of the body. Therefore, the ancient Greeks regarded those wise men who focused on contemplating life as respectable models. In the tradition of Aristotle and Stoicism, bios theoretikos also has priority-compared with any other kind of real life, the life of meditation enjoys a higher status. However, unlike itinerant priests, hermits and monks, these wise men represent a road to salvation that only a few educated people can embark on. Because of its elitism, philosophy can hardly keep up with the world religions that promise to benefit all beings. Therefore, since the late classical period, Greek philosophy and institutionalized religion have been in * * *, becoming more and more academic institutions of theology and losing their independent commitment to salvation. ? Quot There are fewer and fewer books entitled "Comfort of Philosophy", and monotheism frees philosophy from the task of providing comfort and moral education. In Europe, it is now the church that helps people cope with secular suffering, poverty, disease and death. At the same time, as the cessation of secular rationality, philosophy gradually retreated to the cognitive field, and understood theory as a way to acquire knowledge, rather than a typical Aristotelian way to be saved.

Aristotle also found a different answer to the question of the practical influence of philosophy. He believes that only in the form of practical philosophy can theory gain practical significance. But this part of philosophy is far from a strictly understood theory, focusing on discussing various problems about how people live the most wisely. In the sense of Aristotle's practical wisdom, ethical reasoning abandons three classical propositions of this theory. First of all, on the question of how to pursue a happy life, the promise of religious salvation was replaced by secular teaching. Secondly, theory ensures the certainty of knowledge, but we can't find similar certainty in this reasonable guidance of daily life, because practical philosophy serves for intelligent life rather than science. Finally, ethical insights will never be strengthened by the shaping process of theoretical life patterns. On the contrary, ethics has to presuppose that its fairly socialized audience can successfully review the road to success in personality development. Only for those who have intuitively realized the true meaning of a happy life can philosophy teach them how to pursue a happy life. Under the post-metaphysical ideological conditions in modern times, when the background presupposition of ontology and theology became more and more controversial, practical philosophy took a step forward and even sacrificed its content. Because, in view of the diversity of world outlook, modern ethical reasoning has been unable to defend various specific models of successful life and regard them as models worthy of emulation. In Rawls' words, in a free society, everyone has the right to develop and pursue a beautiful life as he understands it, or, more cautiously, a life as he understands it that is not wasted. Based on this assumption, ethics (that is, Aristotle taught people how to live a happy life) has more formal aspects: who I am, how I will live, what is good for me in the long run, and so on. Since Kierkegaard, ethics has taken the form of existential philosophy, focusing only on clarifying various conditions and patterns of sober or real life style. If philosophical ethics takes the form of neo-Aristotle hermeneutics, then it should examine how people use tradition to clarify their self-understanding. If it takes the form of negotiation ethics, then it will discuss the debate process that must be carried out in order to obtain clear self-identity. Since Kierkegaard, all kinds of modern ethics-as a guide to life in the classical sense-no longer try to clarify the typical life mode recognized by the public; On the contrary, they only provide suggestions for the individual to choose a specific way of reflection, so that he can live a real life of self-choice.

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Once the classical alliance between ethics and politics collapsed, the truly modern political theory and moral theory developed along the road of contract theory and Kant's deontology. They replaced "What are my long-term interests?" Ethical and political issues, moral, legal and political issues, practical justice, are equally good for everyone. When some norms reflect everyone's interests equally, so they can be recognized by all rational subjects without coercion, they are considered "just". At the same time, reflected in nature or world history? Quot The concept of "objective rationality" is transformed into the concept of "subjective rationality" as the rational ability of individual actors. All participants are regarded as free and equal participants, and they hope to establish various rules of their daily life independently. Kant and Rousseau believe that "self-discipline" is the ability to make individual will obey the law, of course, only obey those universal laws that are equally beneficial to everyone and therefore worth adopting. Based on this egalitarian universalism, philosophy deduces some highly explosive concepts "just because of rationality". As Hegel declared, the French Revolution was "triggered by philosophy". In his view, according to the tradition of contract theory on natural law, philosophy has made an unprecedented declaration: "Man is upside down, that is, he stands on his own thoughts and creates reality according to these thoughts. Along this line of thought, the internal relationship between modern natural law and revolution provides another answer to our initial question: the just society expected by philosophy should be realized through revolutionary practice. However, at the same time, the relationship between theory and practice envisaged by Marx has also become a problem. This point-if we pay attention to the conceptual connection rather than the empirical connection-can be attributed to the instrumental position of historical philosophy developed in18th century. The historical concept of teleology tries to make up for the inherent defects of the normalization of modern natural law. This is not to belittle the lasting significance of the well-organized normative construction of "justice * * * isomorphism" that has been rationally defended. According to these ideas, it is possible to condemn the existing injustice and politically demand more legal organizations. However, the construction of normalization explains what it should be, but it doesn't say a word about how to realize what it should be in practice. For this reason, Hegel scornfully ridiculed "the incompetence of only' should'". Therefore, it seems reasonable to browse the history and find out those tendencies that naturally support normative views. Because of a new and future-oriented historical consciousness, this field has been endowed with significance, so history has aroused the interest of philosophy for the first time. Kant began to discuss the problem of "the realization of reason in history", while Hegel transformed the super-historical movement of reason into a series of process concepts about the origin of reason, which was considered to give structure to both nature and history.

Hegel tried to use his dialectical historical philosophy to build a bridge between the abstract rationality of norms and the current unreasonable social and historical reality. In Kant's view, the philosophy of history encourages the moral practice of cooperative individuals, while Hegel puts forward an all-encompassing concept of "world history". Considering that the logic of the world historical process is predetermined to some extent, some famous students of Hegel feel a challenge, that is, to create a space where they can once again give historical actors their own practical forms. Feuerbach and Marx were fascinated and disgusted with their tutor system. They reject the idealistic form of philosophy, but hope to keep its reasonable content. Now they want to realize philosophy by abolishing and sublating philosophy, of course, not through personal moral action like Kant, but through political means. In this way, they finally turned over the relationship between classical theory and practice.

Now, theory will appear in two costumes, one is false consciousness and the other is criticism. In these two aspects, philosophy is rooted in practice in a certain social background and has always relied on practice. When critical theory tries to reveal the background dependence of traditional theory which considers itself independent of any historical conditions, this criticism realizes its own social roots. When staring at the background mirror of their own historical origins, they also got a group of listeners who were inspired by critical insights and engaged in liberation practice. What self-reflection theory wants to provide now is this critical insight.

In this way, Marx transformed Hegel's theory into an economic criticism, aiming to trigger the practical subversion of the social capitalist foundation. He understood this practice as the sublation and realization of philosophy. However, this extreme idea was proved wrong long before the terrible failure of the Soviet experiment and the disintegration of the Soviet empire. This version of putting theory into practice has also been criticized by western Marxism. In this regard, I only mention three points.

Criticism first points to the basic presuppositions of historical materialism, which actually do not break away from the overall impulse of metaphysics, but only move the thinking mode of teleology from nature to the whole history. However, at the same time, the self-awareness of the fallibility of science also touches on philosophy, which leads to a sense that the structural changes of history are no longer regarded as showing an invisible hand. Secondly, criticism projects the image of the grand subject onto the curtain of world history. The concepts of collective actors, such as social class, culture, people or the spirit of the times, all represent some super-large subject. However, different beliefs and intentions of different individuals can be reasonably integrated through exchanges and discussions between subjects. Therefore, criticism points to projecting the macro subject onto the screen of world history. The concepts of collective actors, such as "social class", "culture", "people" or "national spirit", all imply some super-large subject. However, different individuals' divergent beliefs and conflicting intentions can be reasonably integrated through communication and negotiation between subjects. Therefore, in some key social development processes, political intervention depends on the formation of democratic ideas and will. Third, the avant-garde social revolutionary plan has also led to criticism of the excessive expansion of critical reason itself. The interest in controlling history-like the network of historical events, which is accidental in nature, largely inaccessible and second nature-has unfortunately replaced the impulse to try to liberate mankind from the repeated compulsion of the oppressed and miserable history. The concept of practice guided by the so-called "historical law" has crossed the boundary of human limited mind, and it has not given enough respect to the pluralistic structure of a practical form. This practice is driven by the "yes" (affirmation) and "no" (negation) of the interacting actors. It confuses the intersubjective practice of socialized individuals with the technical intervention of collective subjects who only advocate self.

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Therefore, young hegelians's impulse to turn theory into practice only reflects the other side of instrumental rationality mentioned by Hawke, Hamor and Adorno. In other words, is the modern formulation of the question "How does philosophy become practice" wrong from the beginning? I think it is imprudent to draw this conclusion at once. At the thought that today's philosophy has only become one of the academic subjects, most of us feel impatient and feel that something essential is missing. At least, it is hard to deny the intuition that a philosophy that regresses to a discipline and self-sustaining discourse is no longer the philosophy referred to in the proper sense of this word. The disadvantage is not the lack of a general concept-that is, to consider nature and history as a whole. In modernity, especially considering the disasters in the 20th century, some metaphysical meanings revealed by reason have been irretrievably lost. What philosophy that retreats to academic disciplines lacks is another thing, a vision, through which philosophical statements will gain the power to provide a certain direction of life.

After a theory turned into practice in an obviously wrong way and suffered a fiasco, Kant's distinction between academic philosophy and secular philosophy appeared in a new form. The popular way has the convenience of not answering the self-created questions defined by philosophical discussion itself, which makes it easy to distinguish it from the highly specialized work of an advanced discipline. Popular ways have a public influence, so they are eager to ask questions to philosophy from the outside, that is, from private and public life, such as Nietzsche later. These diagnostic paths respond to the special needs of modernity. After all, modernity has lost the guidance of any past model. Because the philosophical discourse of modernity must realize a normative self-understanding through itself. Philosophical discourse on modernity is occupied by modern apologists and critics, with karl popper, Hans Blumenberg or Appel on one side and michel foucault, jacques derrida and Richard Rorty on the other. This is not the place to discuss in depth whose theory is better. However, in view of our expectations of philosophy today, I find an interesting tension in the background of this debate. I regard it as the opposition between a quasi-religion and a more practical self-understanding of philosophy.

After Nietzsche, Heidegger believed that the history of western civilization and social history reflected a history of ideas of potential Platonism and Hellenistic Christianity. In other words, in order to overcome the humanistic self-understanding of modern people, he deconstructed the metaphysical history. According to his criticism of the modern situation, a new quiet and far-reaching attitude should replace a subjective and possessive individualism that is only self-assertion. At the same time, Heidegger assigned this criticism of metaphysics a task to remind people of the primitive religious significance of meditation. However, the philosophical "memory" of existence is not to restore the memory of ideas to achieve some personal salvation; It tries to overcome the doomsday fate in human heart. When advocating this "apocalyptic care theory", Heidegger appeared as a chosen thinker, and it seems that there is a special way to make the truth appear. He believes that a mysterious memory thought has magical and touching power, which accelerates the coming redemption in the west in an indirect way. In this way of thinking, thinkers are considered to balance the fate of modernity being abandoned by God. Marxism is committed to consolidating its connection with world history through revolutionary practice. Heidegger reserved the fatalistic connection with the meta-history of existence for philosophy, which was realized by pseudo-religious propaganda of the spiritual strength of selected thinkers.

In this way, philosophy continues to shoulder the fate of the world. There is still a tradition of Platonism here, which is incompatible with the modern turning point of universalism towards equality. A truly modern philosophical vision, which tries to keep one foot away from science and scholarship, and does not escape the consciousness of making mistakes in any academic career, will be forced to give up the declaration that it has mastered the key to truth (Arnold Gehlen once called it the "key attitude" of powerful people). If philosophy still tries to provide direction for life, it must be done in a less dramatic way. In this way, philosophy has reached a more humble and practical self-understanding and positioned itself in the split order of modern society. Philosophy gave up its pretentious attitude and no longer described itself as the balance of the whole modern world. Instead, it tries to stay in this world and try to explain it. It achieves this goal in such a way that it takes on various roles with different functions and makes specific contributions to specific audiences.

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Before outlining these practical functions of philosophy, I should first make a reservation. There has always been a tension between the external social role of philosophy and the internal concept of philosophers. The totality view of all philosophical thoughts-even if it is only the "totality" view of some loose backgrounds in the life world-rejects any form of functional differentiation. Indeed, philosophy cannot be completely immersed in one of its social roles; Its special function can only be realized if it is surpassed at the same time. To equate the function of philosophy with a function based on a clear division of labor and a clear definition will make it lose its most important anti-authority tradition, that is, a fixed and unconstrained ideological force that is not guided by methods.

The various roles of philosophy that I will outline come from a special understanding of modern society (which I have elaborated elsewhere). According to this understanding, the private and public spheres of culture, society, personality and life world are all related to the role that philosophy can play in contemporary society.

The separation of science from modern law, morality and art has changed the position of philosophy in the whole modern culture as a whole. /kloc-before the 0/7th century, the specialization of knowledge was manifested as the internal differentiation of philosophy-as an all-encompassing science. Even after that, philosophy continued to claim that at least the "foundation" of knowledge is its field. However, after Kant and Hegel, philosophy gradually gave up the task of providing the ultimate defense for any knowledge and defended the facts with a more modest scientific role. Since then, philosophy can only respond to the independent development of independent science. Philosophy still occupies a place in the academic system, that is, in natural science and humanities, which is not only out of habit, but also for institutional reasons.

Since Plato, philosophy has been engaged in conceptual analysis through memory. Therefore, until today, in order to clarify the rational basis of cognition, language and action, philosophy is still committed to rebuilding pre-theoretical knowledge about common sense. After being stripped of its basic ideas, philosophy began to cooperate with other sciences. Usually, what philosophy does is to keep an open space for those methods with strong universalism. Philosophy, like science, is also committed to seeking truth, but the difference is that philosophy maintains internal relations with law, morality and art, and it examines norms and evaluation issues from the internal perspectives of these fields. By taking the logic of righteousness and benefit seriously and examining the structure of moral emotion and aesthetic experience, it maintains its unique ability to switch between different discourses and translate between different expert languages.

Here, we can see that philosophy, a peculiar interdisciplinary feature, keeps all the still separated components of rationality unified to a certain extent, without covering up the different aspects of effectiveness: the authenticity of assertions, the legitimacy of moral or legal norms, and the convincing appeal of artistic works. Philosophy does not rely on the overall existence or some universal concept of goodness to advocate the unity of diversified rational forms, but on its explanatory ability to cross the boundaries of various languages and discourses while maintaining sensitivity to the overall context in the background. However, giving up cooperation with other sciences and stubbornly insisting on owning an isolated field-a field that is so-called higher than science and far away from science, whether it is "philosophical belief", "life", "freedom of existence" or "mystery" or "existence" in the meta-historical dimension of "events", will never benefit philosophy. If philosophy is not related to science and does not study its own problems as a special discipline, it will lose the insight needed to realize its external role.

Before explaining the significance of this position of philosophy in modern culture to the interesting role of intellectual (C), please allow me to briefly talk about how scientists (A) and therapists (B) provide the meaning of life. Philosophers obviously can't pay attention to only one role without paying attention to other roles. They must compete with other intellectuals and knowledge types from other places.

(a) The functional system of modern society depends on specialized knowledge, which mainly comes from experts. Because experts have professional knowledge, people who want to use this knowledge expect experts to give advice on related issues from their perspective. Applied knowledge comes from related natural science and social science, and is first considered as the information source of technical problems. For this purpose, there is generally no need for philosophical knowledge, just as there is no need for historical or hermeneutic knowledge provided by other humanities. However, at least people will ask philosophers some questions, such as the methodology of critical evaluation of expert opinions; First of all, it involves normative issues such as ecology, medicine and bioengineering, as well as the risks of the application of new technologies in general. In some cases, it will involve ethical self-understanding that touches political unity. For example, when the parliament discusses the criminal characteristics of a overthrown regime, or looks for the best strategy to deal with the elusive past (trial, punishment or forgiveness, forgetting), it will encounter such problems. Some of us may be a little anxious to think that the whole world is concerned about the perfection of medical ethics. As experts, philosophers don't have to be busy with self-denial. Only when they deal with the instrumentalization of their knowledge can they promote the understanding of these technical limitations.

(b) On the contrary, philosophy seems to satisfy people's desire for the practical orientation and meaning of life. However, even here, it can't realize this expectation without reservation. Because the main feature of modern situation is the legal pluralism of world outlook, philosophers cannot agree or disagree with the essence of a particular lifestyle or life plan. They can't alleviate the desires of modern people by providing substitutes for religious beliefs and world views that have lost their certainty. They had to entrust the priest with the task of providing comfort and relief for the existing conflicts. Philosophy can neither rely on the knowledge of salvation nor on the knowledge of clinical treatment, so it can't propose a life path like religion or clinical psychology. As ethics, it provides guidelines for realizing reasonable self-understanding on issues such as identity, who a person is and who he expects to be. However, so far, the therapeutic function of philosophical ethics is to encourage people to live consciously at most. Meet? Quot gives meaning ",the" suggestion "of philosophy will remain silent; Reflection on the meaning of a person's life can only be that person's responsibility. (c) Philosophers, as intellectuals, have a wider influence on reality than experts and therapists. Intellectuals participate in public dialogue in order to realize self-understanding in modern society. Through mass media, various public spheres overlap or converge in the cultural and political public sphere of the whole people. This kind of public space constitutes a sounding board for macro-social problems, which is invisible to those closed and self-referential functional systems. In other words, the complete network of public sphere in civil society is a place where all kinds of highly complex societies can realize the related shortcomings and risks and deal with the problem of pushing them to act according to their own politics. Of course, there are many actors involved in the discussion and handling of public affairs. What we are interested in here is a group of actors who stand out because they can neither ask for nor be authorized to interfere, but take the initiative to use their professional abilities and put forward some well-founded views on issues of common concern. By realizing this grand requirement, that is, to consider all relevant viewpoints fairly and treat the interests of all parties equally in all situations, they have gained an authority, which these intellectuals can rely on most. Philosophers are better suited to deal with some problems than other intellectuals, whether they are writers, professionals or scientists. First of all, philosophy can make a special contribution to the diagnosis of our times and help modern society realize self-understanding. Because since the late18th century, modern discourse has mainly adopted the philosophical form of rational self-criticism. Secondly, philosophy can effectively explain its traditional holism and various abilities. If philosophy keeps close contact with science and common sense; Knowing not only the language of daily life, but also the language of expert culture, it will be able to, for example, criticize the colonization of the life world, which has been hollowed out by the trend of commercialization, bureaucracy, legalization and science. Finally, in a "just" or orderly society, philosophy has the special ability to solve basic problems. Philosophy and democracy not only have the same historical origin, but also have some connection. Philosophy has a special interest in the constitutional protection of freedom of thought and communication. Conversely, democratic discourse that is often threatened also needs the vigilance and intervention of rational guardians. In the modern history of Europe, from Rousseau, through Hegel and Marx, to John Stuart Mill and Dewey, political philosophy had a great influence on public life. An example that needs philosophical clarification in current politics is the cross-cultural dispute about how to understand human rights.

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Nowadays, with closer ties, the international community no longer only needs to supervise "international" exchanges. Under the pressure of economic globalization, politics has also developed into a transnational system. At the same time, it is increasingly necessary to transform national laws into worldwide civil laws, so that people can handle domestic affairs equally, or when necessary, people can resort to national laws to oppose their own governments. As stipulated in various declarations, human rights are suitable for this purpose. In any case, under the background that people have been more actively implementing the United Nations human rights policy since 1989, the correct interpretation of human rights has become more and more intense. Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the differences between social systems have decreased. It is the difference between different cultures, especially the difference between the secularized western world and Islamic fundamentalism, and the difference between western individualism and the isomorphic Asian tradition.

I can't discuss this debate in more detail here. However, this example is enough to illustrate the direct political influence of philosophy. Allow me to conclude this article by focusing on three main aspects of this debate. In my opinion, philosophical clarification is both necessary and possible here:-Since the participants in this discussion come from different cultural backgrounds, I suggest that we first reflect on the hermeneutics of human rights itself. This will lead our attention to the normative content that has been embedded in the premise of the ongoing debate practice. No matter what cultural background they come from, all participants will intuitively realize that if the relationship between participants in communication is unequal, then understanding based on opinions is impossible. In other words, participants should establish a relationship of mutual recognition and exchange of perspectives, and they are willing to look at their cultural traditions from the perspective of outsiders, so as to learn from each other and exchange needed goods. -I think it is very beneficial to reflect on the concept of "subject right" used in the concept of human rights. Only in this way can we reveal a double misunderstanding when we interpret the debate between individualists and collectivists. Western possessive individualism is invisible, and the subject's rights can only be derived from the pre-existing norms of the same legal body and recognized by the subject. However, the status of the subject rights bearer is first formed in the political identity based on mutual identity. Nowadays, when we abandon the wrong claim that some individuals have natural rights before socialization, we should also abandon their opposite claim that the rights of * * * take precedence over the legal rights of individuals.

Once we put the reverse unity of individualization and socialization into the core concept of legal theory adopting intersubjectivity: that is, a legal person can only become an individual through the process of socialization, then the choices provided by these two theoretical strategies will also disappear. Finally, it is also very important to clarify the different grammatical functions between sentences and value statements, normative expressions and general evaluation expressions. Because the deontological study of rights and obligations cannot be equated with the axiological study of value preference. Different lifestyles and traditions have caused the recognition of various groups, and these groups have fundamentally irreconcilable orientations in life. Starting from this premise, it is always difficult for them to reach an agreement between different cultures at the transnational level or between different sub-cultural groups within a country. Here, in order to reach an agreement on mandatory norms (about mutual rights and obligations), it is not required not to do so.