Existence and Western Philosophical Tradition

1. What are the three basic theoretical branches of philosophy? Please talk about your own understanding in combination with the history of philosophy.

There are many two disciplines in philosophy, such as logic, ethics, religion, aesthetics, science and philosophy. In China, there are Marxist philosophy and so on. Generally speaking, if you talk about the so-called three basic theories according to your topic, I think it refers to ontology, epistemology and ethics.

1. Ontology refers to the exploration of the world's primitive problems, or the exploration of the first nature. Although the term "ontology" was put forward by Guo Clanyu in the17th century, we can find the shadow of "ontology" from Greek philosophy, the source of western philosophy.

Ancient Greek philosophy has a tradition of discussing nature. For example, Aristotle's Physics discusses nature. Of course, the "nature" here is different from the antonym "nature" of "artificial" in the modern sense. The natural meaning of ancient Greece contains the original nature of things. It can be said that studying nature is to study the essence of things, or its origin, or its principle.

This discussion about the origin was very common in ancient Greece. For example, Thales thinks that water is the origin of the world, anaximander thinks that "uncertainty" is the origin of the world, and Heraclitus thinks that "fire" is the origin of the world. There are empedocles's "Four Primitive Theories", Anacker Sagora's "Seed Theory", Plato's "Idea Theory" and so on. Aristotle summarized the origin as "existence" or used "entity" as the origin. It can be said that Aristotle is a master of ancient Greek philosophy.

With the development of philosophy, ontology is gradually enriched. For example, in the Middle Ages, God was regarded as the absolute first, and in modern times, the primacy of human "self" was established, even in modern times, it still remains to be discussed. Of course, there are different interpretations of entity in the history of philosophy, such as spiritual entity, material entity and extension are the attributes of entity, Kant's "thing itself" and Hegel's "subject is entity".

In the history of philosophy, ontology runs through. As far as a philosophical system is concerned, ontology has become the cornerstone of a philosophical system, and philosophers can construct their own world schema on this basis.

2. If philosophy is simplified into three questions: Where does it come from? How's it going? Where are you going? Then we can correspond the three basic theories mentioned above one by one. Where did it come from? Is to explore the origin; How's it going? How to develop contact can be understood as epistemology; Where are you going? It refers to our purpose, or how to pursue happiness. Where is kindness?

Epistemology is actually a philosophical theory that discusses the essence and structure of human cognition, the relationship between cognition and objective reality, the premise and foundation of cognition, the process and law of the occurrence and development of cognition, and the truth standard of cognition. In China, I like to divide epistemology into idealism and materialism. According to the argument between the two theories in the history of western philosophy, it can also be divided into rationalism and empiricism. It is worth pointing out that in ancient Greek philosophy, we seldom mention what epistemology is, because there is no subject and object in it, so there is no understanding at all. At that time, it was a bit like China's so-called "harmony between man and nature". Until modern times, it can be said that from Descartes, philosophy turned from the traditional "theology" or "ontology" research to the discussion of epistemology. This also marks the rise of "self" and "rationality".

3. Ethics. Among many philosophical problems, ethics is also a "long history" and "eternal" problem. Mainly discuss what is good and what is happiness. Many philosophers in the history of philosophy have made efforts to this end. From Plato's idea, the goodness and immovability of ancient Greece, the medieval God, Kant's moral law, Hegel's absolute spirit, Nietzsche's will to power and so on. Until modern times, there are still philosophers who have endless discussions about this. For example, Foucault and Derrida criticized freedom and society and so on. There was a small climax of ethics in the Hellenistic period, that is, the decline of Greece and the rise of Rome, which can be said to run through the later history of philosophy. In my understanding, the theory that guides us where to go is the cornerstone of the philosophical building.

Second, the core of western philosophy is ontology, and its research object is existence. What is the meaning of existence? How did these meanings evolve in the history of western philosophy?

Actually, I don't want to answer. There are too many questions. This topic is too big. ...

"Ontology" is translated into cost body or ontology. Why are there these two statements? Please join Aristotle, the first point of the first question.

The Chinese translation of "You" is "You" or "You". The use of the latter seems to be less in the materials I have read. What needs to be said here is that the word "existence" sometimes corresponds to Heidegger's theoretical system in China. In Heidegger's system, "existence" means "existence" and "existence" means "existence". In Heidegger's view, the history of western philosophy is a "forgotten history". Because all philosophers except him studied "existence", only he studied "existence" itself, the existence of existence. I'll talk about this later. I don't have time. ...

Third, please closely combine Plato's Argument and Kant's Answer this Question: What is Enlightenment? These two classic texts answer what is enlightenment and what is the most critical in the Enlightenment.

Let's start with Plato's argument. This article is about Socrates being tried by an ancient Greek court. Socrates defended himself in court. The content was recorded by Plato and became a "book". Why did Socrates go to court? Because he was charged with two crimes: ungodly and bewitching teenagers. In fact, the two are the same. What does he confuse teenagers? Just don't worship god. Socrates' defense in the complaint is that he does not believe in God, but believes in man. He said that in order to prove an Oracle (the Oracle said: Socrates is the smartest person), he visited other so-called smart people to prove whether Socrates is a smart person. During the interview, he always asks the other person why, and the other person can't bear it, so he is the cleverest. Socrates thinks that his cleverest place is not that he can ask others, but that he knows his ignorance and others don't. This is what he calls "ignorance".

As far as I know, the tradition of ancient Greece is to explore what the origin is, and this problem often appeared in the form of dogmatism at that time, without rigorous argumentation and legal explanation, so it was debated endlessly. Socrates thinks that it is meaningless to study these things, and the purpose of philosophical inquiry is to know oneself. So he put forward "know yourself". He is also known as "the man who sent philosophy back from heaven to earth". It can be seen that since Socrates, the problem of "man" or the status of "man" began to improve.

Kant's answer to this question: What is the Enlightenment? This passage mainly discusses what is enlightenment (nonsense), or reflects on the gains and losses of enlightenment. In fact, it can be further said that it is to reflect on the gains and losses of rationality. We know that the Enlightenment can be summarized as anti-religion and anti-superstition. To this end, it tries to be people-centered. The method adopted is based on human rationality as the standard of critical value. Rationality is a unique ability of human beings, and taking rationality as the critical standard undoubtedly establishes the central position of human beings.

Before the Enlightenment, religious theology or belief dominated the norms of European society, which undoubtedly bound the human spirit. In this period, in order to explain the gospel of God, "philosophy is the handmaid of theology". With the development of natural science, various natural phenomena have been reasonably explained, classical mechanics and other sciences have begun to form a strict system, and people have begun to realize "self". Descartes' "I think therefore I am"). Since then, rationality has become the standard of judgment.

But problems also follow. Although rationality has overcome religious superstition, ignorance and sacred authority, the biggest problem is that rationality itself cannot prove its legitimacy. To some extent, people have replaced God and authority with reason. The fundamental pattern has not changed, but the "ruler" has changed. Therefore, we will find that since modern times, people have been guided by reason, science and technology have become more and more developed, but the happiness index is higher than a certain level, and the fundamental human problems such as war and ethics have not been well solved. So Kant wrote this article.

From the perspective of Kant's philosophical system, it can be divided into: artificial natural legislation, artificial self-legislation, and natural legislation. This shows that in Kant's system, the status of reason and belief is strictly distinguished. He believes that reason and belief should not cross the line, otherwise there will be problems.

Therefore, both Plato and Kant attach importance to rationality, but rationality is a tool rather than an end. What should really be at the core should be people, not reason. So the most important thing in the Enlightenment is people. As Socrates said: Know yourself.