Jepp/What is "modernity"?

From: Philosophia Philosophical Society

Philosophical Garden acknowledges

"Modernity" is a term that is widely used in philosophy, sociology, and even literature and art. According to Habermas, as far as the discourse of modernity is concerned, from the late 18th century onwards it "has been the subject of philosophical discussion". But even for such an important word, when we look up the English name "Modernity" for it on Merriam Webster, we will still find this vague explanation:

1. The quality or state of being or appearing to be modern;

2. The modern era or world and especially the ideas and attitudes associated with the modern world.

Therefore, what this article needs to do is to briefly introduce the definition, origin, and core values of "modernity". Most of the content of this article is compiled from Professor Chen Jiaming's book "Fifteen Lectures on Modernity and Postmodernity". This book is easy to understand and easy to understand, and it is highly recommended that readers go and buy it.

/ Definitions

Of the most famous of the notions of modernity that we know today, there are three of the more famous.

One is That Giddens saw modernity as an acronym for modern society or industrial civilization, which encompasses a set of structures ranging from worldviews (attitudes toward the relationship between man and the world), economic systems (industrial production and market economies) to political systems (nation-states and democracies). In this sense, modernity roughly equates with "industrialized world" and "capitalism", including its competitive product markets and the system of commodity production in the process of the commodification of labor. The difference between modernity and tradition, in Giddens' view, is fundamentally a change in order that takes place in terms of institutions, cultures, and ways of life. It is embodied in two outstanding results: one is that for society, it establishes the "globalization" of social connections across the globe; the other is that for individuals, it establishes the values and behavior of Western individualism, that is, the thinking and pursuit of "how should I live" with self-realization as the core.

The second is that Habermas saw modernity as an "unfinished design" that aimed to replace the fragmented patterns and standards of the Middle Ages with new models and standards, to construct a new kind of social knowledge and era, in which individual freedom constituted the epochal characteristics of modernity, and the principle of subjectivity constituted the self-confirmatory principle of modernity. In Habermas's view, one of the most central problems of modernity is its self-understanding and self-confirmation. Such a problem did not exist for medieval society, because in a theocratic society religious ideology already provided the relevant answer. Since the Enlightenment, when people have tried to establish a new society and culture, this value system with the innate inalienable rights such as freedom as the core, as well as the corresponding political and economic system arrangements, with the transformation of the source of value, what is the rationality of it has become a question that needs to be confirmed. Since the world is no longer seen as a creature of God, but as the design of man's reason, the basis of this rationality of nature comes from man himself, from man's reason. Thus reason has become the source of truth, the source of value, and thus the place where modernity can rest.

Third, Foucault understood modernity as "an attitude." He said, "By attitude, I am referring to a pattern connected with contemporary reality; a voluntary choice made by a particular people; and finally, a way of thinking and feeling, that is, a way of behaving and behaving, in a moment and at the same moment, this way marks a relation of belonging and expresses it as a task." Undoubtedly, it is a bit like what the Greeks called the ethos of society." In particular, this "attitude" or "spiritual temperament" of modernity, which Foucault interprets as a kind of "philosophical questioning," i.e., a character of "critical inquiry" of the times. In discussing the meaning of the Enlightenment, he particularly emphasized that the spiritual wealth that we should inherit from the Enlightenment, or the attitude that can connect us with the Enlightenment, is precisely this philosophical temperament of eternal criticism of the times, rather than being faithful to a certain creed. For Foucault, therefore, modernity fundamentally implied a critical spirit.

/ Source of modernity: The Enlightenment

It is generally believed that the basic concept of modernity comes from the spirit of the Enlightenment, which nurtures the emergence of modernity.

The "Enlightenment" refers to a broad and powerful intellectual movement that took place in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, the purpose of which was to use reason to break down religious superstitions and blind obedience, to use scientific knowledge to eliminate myths and illusions, to free people from their obscurantist state, and to achieve an ideological and political autonomy. The above characteristics of the Enlightenment have been recognized by many thinkers. For example, in the 18th century, the great German philosopher Kant outlined enlightenment as a detachment from the immaturity that one imposes on oneself. To do this, it is fundamentally that people "dare to use their own reason." Isaiah · Berlin also summed up the core ideas of the Enlightenment as follows: "The promotion of rational self-discipline and the observation-based method of natural science is the only reliable way of seeking knowledge, thereby denying the authority of religious revelation, the theological scriptures and their recognized interpreters, the traditions, the precepts of purity, and the authority of all forms of knowledge derived from irrational and transcendental."

Therefore, we can see that since the goal of enlightenment is to eliminate ignorance and open up the wisdom of the people, the source of value naturally cannot come from God's revelation as previously believed, and people can only rely on their own reason and bold thinking. Thus, in the age of enlightenment, reason took on the heavy responsibility of ideological criticism and became the "court" that judged all existing religious, philosophical, legal and political concepts. Rationalism is first and foremost based on the affirmation of the capacity of "reason", that is, the recognition of reason as an ability different from sensibility, emotion, and will. This ability is mainly manifested in the ability to think, reflect, engage in logical judgment and reasoning, and is concentrated in the form of a "self-aware" ability, or "I think". In the history of philosophy, rationalism has taken different forms in epistemology, ethics, and religious philosophy. Epistemological rationalism is the basis of rationalism in other fields, and it advocates the superiority of reason over other cognitive faculties in the acquisition of knowledge.

Rationalism in the philosophy of religion opposes the concept of "revelation" at the core of religious knowledge and advocates a rationalized religion. The essence of the Enlightenment rationalist critique of religious creeds is the deconstruction of the sanctification of religion. In Europe's march toward modern civilized society, the institutionalized Catholic Church, as the embodiment of the sanctification of religion, was once the enemy of progressive thought and science. Copernicus's "heliocentric theory" was declared "false and completely unbiblical" by the Church because it destroyed the Ptolemaic "geocentric theory" that scholastic philosophy incorporated into its own system and influenced people's thinking and beliefs, and was not allowed to be published until it was corrected. The infamous "Inquisition" set up by the church even sentenced Bruno, a philosopher who advocated freedom for people to doubt religious doctrine, to death and burned to death in Rome. The misfortunes suffered by copernican doctrine and Bruno himself were due to their challenge to Christian worldview creeds and to the authority of Christianity. Religious obscurantism posed a great obstacle to the progress of civilization, and it was inevitable for Enlightenment thinkers to struggle against it. They resort to reason to violently criticize religious obscurantism and seek to weaken the right of faith and punishment imposed by religious churches. As a result of the deconstruction of christianity, the process of western modernity manifests itself as a process of "disenchantment" as described by Weber, that is, the gradual disintegration and elimination of the religious worldview, the process of the world getting rid of the control and influence of the institutionalized church, and gradually moving towards secularization; this process is also a process of cultural rationalization.

In addition to sweeping away religious ignorance and clearing the way for the enlightenment and freedom of thought, the rationalism of the Enlightenment has at least instilled some consciousness and spirit into modern Western thought, which provided the ideological basis for the emergence of modernity.

Enlightenment's rational view

Epistemologically, rationalism has established the standard of knowledge of the recent (modern) generation, that is, knowledge must have the following attributes: objectivity, universality, necessity, certainty. Berlin even saw this view of knowledge as "the central principle of the Enlightenment." This is reflected in the concept of truth, that is, truth is monistic. In connection with such a view of knowledge and truth there is epistemological, Cartesian classical fundamentalism, in which knowledge manifests itself as a two-tiered structure, at the bottom of which are certain, self-evident and self-evident basic beliefs, which manifest themselves as axioms similar to geometry that can be used to support the non-fundamental beliefs on which they are found, to provide them with proof of justification, to make them deterministic knowledge.

As an extension of the above-mentioned view of knowledge, rationalism establishes in the field of science the idea that there are universal, eternal natural and social laws, that the purpose of any science is to grasp such universal laws; that there are real, unchanging, universal objective values which are correct for all people, in all places, and in all epochs, and which are achievable, at least in principle. On the one hand, this concept of grasping the law helps to guide people to pay attention to the discussion of the laws of nature and social development, and promote the development of natural sciences and humanities and social sciences, but on the other hand, it also expands the concept of "rationality is omnipotent", leading to blind optimism and arrogance of reason, trying to artificially design the order and mode of future society.

Deeper into this, the claim of the power of "reason" is an effort to grasp human nature fundamentally, as can be seen in the title of Hume's Treatise on Human Nature. Hume affirmed that "the science of man is the only solid foundation of other sciences," and that the "capital or heart" of this science is " human nature itself." The setting of human nature provided a cornerstone for enlightenment philosophy.

For some philosophers, however, they have developed the belief based on ancient natural jurisprudence that there is a constant and unchanging humanity. The reason why man is human is determined by this human nature. Although times and regions can be different and show their diversity, human nature is eternal. Just as the grasp of the laws of nature enables us to explain natural phenomena, the grasp of human nature enables us to understand the spiritual and cultural phenomena of man.

Whether it is the concept of knowledge, the concept of truth, or the theory of human nature, in short, they all belong to the monist way of thinking, which is compatible with the only logical form that existed at that time, formal logic. The basic law of thinking of formal logic is the same law: A = A. Anyone who violates this law is considered a contradiction and is to be excluded, because contradiction implies error and is therefore impermissible.

With the advancement of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, philosophers also gained a deeper understanding of the essence and role of reason, which was concentrated in Kant and Hegel. Let's look at Kant first. As is well known, Kant wrote the famous three critiques and other treatises, systematically thinking about the power and role of reason, so that reason and modernity have a clear relationship, becoming the basic constituent elements of modernity, which is concentrated in the following two aspects.

First, the use of reason is a prerequisite for the emergence of enlightenment, which is a prerequisite for the emergence of modernity. In Kant's view, the purpose of enlightenment is to free man from the immature state of his thoughts, and the so-called "immature state" refers to the inability to use his own intellect without the guidance of others, that is, to be in a state of obscurity. And for enlightenment to take place, "there must always be the freedom to use one's reason openly, and only it can bring about the enlightenment of mankind."

Second, reason is the source of knowledge and the source of value. Epistemologically speaking, this aspect is manifested in the fact that the "I think" of unified consciousness is the highest condition of all knowledge, which is the highest basis for synthesizing the materials of perceptual properties, and on the other hand, it is manifested in the rules of empirical cognition innately in reason itself, that is, reason itself can provide systematic rules or principles for empirical judgment, and it is precisely on the basis of these principles that scientific understanding of the phenomenal world is possible. This is Kant's man-made legislation of nature, or his epistemological "Copernican revolution." From a moral and ethical point of view, on the one hand, the origin of practical reason is manifested in the fact that it can provide an absolute moral law, and take this as the moral responsibility of man, so that he can achieve self-discipline in moral judgment and behavior; on the other hand, this moral law provides a value standard for good and evil, and the motive and behavior that conform to this moral law are good, otherwise it is evil. Here, whether as an epistemic or the highest condition of morality, reason is in short supreme.

After Kant, Hegel pushed the concept of reason to its peak. First, he proves that reason is the highest manifestation and achievement of all human spiritual consciousness by showing a "spiritual phenomenology" from consciousness, self-consciousness to reason; secondly, he goes on to present the history of the spiritual development of this rationality as a strict conceptual system in a sequential manner, and proves that this itself is a logic of thinking that unifies history and logic. Finally, and most importantly, he established a rational standard for things: "Everything that is rational is realistic; everything that is realistic is rational." The importance of this criterion is highlighted by Weber, whose "rationality" has become a criterion for measuring the progress of modern capitalism and the economic, political, legal and other aspects of modern society, and "rationalization" has thus become a symbol of modern society and its modernity.

Weber regarded "rationalism" as something peculiar to Western culture, and regarded "finding and illustrating the uniqueness of Western rationalism from the epigenetic point of view, and on this basis finding and illustrating the uniqueness of modern Western forms" as a top priority. In the context of German rationalism, his analysis of modern society highlights two concepts— "rationality", which evolved into the opposing and conflicting concepts of "value rationality" and "instrumental rationality", and "rationalization", which he used to describe, portray and judge the economic, political and legal norms of modern capitalism. The process of capitalist modernization, in Weber's analysis, manifests itself as a process of total rationalization, which thus becomes the "spirit of capitalism", that is, the modernity of capitalism. In terms of economic behavior, this rationalization is manifested in the "bookkeeping method" of accurately calculating the ratio of investment to return; in terms of political behavior, it is manifested in the bureaucratization and institutionalization of administrative management; in terms of legal behavior, it is manifested in the proceduralization of the judicial process; in terms of cultural behavior, it is manifested in the process of "disenchantment" of the world, that is, the process of secularization.

However, the result of this "formal" rationality of behavior is only a kind of "instrumental rationality", that is, the use of a certain means to achieve a certain purpose, without regard to the rationality of the "content" of the behavior, that is, the moral value considerations it should have. However, society should be referred to by values such as "justice" and "goodness", so modern society has split between "formal rationality" and "substantive rationality", which not only means that the "instrumental rationality" contained in formal rationality has become a purely utilitarian thing, but also means that formal rationality has gone to the opposite of rationality and become an irrational thing. Western modernity thus implies inherent conflict. Weber's analysis in this regard, especially the two concepts of "instrumental rationality" and "rationalization" he used, has a more profound grasp of the characteristics and problems of Western modernity, so it has become a classic theory of modern social analysis, constituting the basic conceptual system and analytical framework for the interpretation of modernity before the emergence of postmodernism. The process of modernization in the West and the formation of modernity are interpreted as a process of rationalization. His theory of "instrumental rationality" was used by Western Marxism, especially the Frankfurt School, as a major symbol of the ills of capitalist society and modernity, thus becoming a major conceptual basis and discursive source for their critique of "technical rationality". This is true of Horkheimer and Adorno's theories of social criticism, to the study of Marcuse's advanced industrial societies, to Habermas's "theory of communicative action."

Enlightened view of science

Along with the concept of knowledge and truth in the Enlightenment period, the Enlightenment also developed a new set of scientific concepts. However, the development of this concept has undergone a change, that is, from the deductive methodology represented by Descartes to the empirical methodology represented by Newton and Locke. The reason for the difference and transformation of these two methods is that the advocates of these two methodologies believe in different scientific models. For their part, the deductive methodologists, taking mathematics, especially Euclidean geometry as a model, identified the ideal scientific method as deducing individual conclusions from certain axioms and principles of universality that presupposed. Descartes, Leibniz, etc. believed that the truth derived from such inferences was inevitable, and that the thought process was from the universal to the individual. For empirical methodologists, they argue that all knowledge is based on observation, from individual perception, through experimentation and other links, and finally form a universal experience.

Beginning with Galileo Galilei, the study of physics embarked on a correct path of starting from observation, proposing hypotheses, and testing hypotheses through experiments and other means. The essence of this method is that it opposes the mere construction of "hypotheses" and speculates only on the assumptions in the mind. Newton said that everything that is not derived from inferences from phenomena is "set", and that it cannot be applied to experimental physics, regardless of whether it is metaphysical, physical, or mechanical. Here Newton was explicitly opposed to the creation of "hypotheses", that is, the creation of metaphysical, unprovable hypotheses, and he never published doctrines that could not be proved by observation or experiment. It should be noted that the term "hypothesis" used by Newton, unlike what we now call the scientific "hypothesis", refers to terms used to describe certain "mysterious qualities" for which we have not even found a procedure for measuring them. For Newton, on the contrary, the correct scientific method should be, on the basis of careful observation of phenomena, "special propositions are deduced from phenomena and then made universal by induction."

The confluence of Newton's scientific empirical methodology and philosophical empiricism made this emphasis on the empirical source of knowledge the mainstream of methodology. The 18th-century French Enlightenment philosophers, such as Voltaire, Condiac, and Ramételli, basically agreed with the empiric claims of Newton and Locke. For example, Voltaire pointed out representatively: "Locke destroyed the idea of talent,...... It's a good proof that all our ideas come from the senses." The methodological trend of thought continued to extend into the positivist philosophy of the 19th century, emerging in the first half of the 20th century with the idea of reinforced logical empiricism, which sought to sweep away all non-scientific propositions by the criterion of "verifiability of propositional meaning". Logical empiricism made empiricist philosophy since the Enlightenment a prominent science, and later appeared as "analytic philosophy", becoming a mainstream school of Western philosophy in the 20th century.

From the source of the sensory experience emphasized by empiricism to the empirical criterion of the meaning of propositions insisted upon by logical empiricism, the substantive questions they relate to are questions concerning scientific demarcation, that is, the demarcation of scientific and non-scientific boundaries. For science and philosophy of the Enlightenment, non-scientific things included not only the non-empirical "assumptions" that Newton opposed, metaphysical speculations, but also religious superstitions. Drawing such a line will, on the one hand, enable science to clarify the nature and methods of its research, eliminate the interference of the old metaphysics and religious creeds, and enable science to develop on the right track; on the other hand, it will force non-scientific things (including metaphysics and religions) to withdraw from the territory of science, so that they can no longer interfere in scientific activities. Correspondingly, the withdrawal of religion from the realm of science, from the realm of politics, the separation of religion from science, from religion from politics, and the return of religion to the spiritual and cultural sphere in which it should have been, thus clarifying the structure of society and the functions of its various elements, enabling it to perform its functions, thus making the process of the secularization of society as embodied by modernity really possible. In this connection, the goal pursued by enlightenment thinkers for religion to become the rational belief of a truly individual can also be realized.

/ The core value of modernity: freedom

What constitutes the ideological edifice of the Enlightenment is the important dimension of liberal thought. Although there are many opinions on the definition and interpretation of liberalism, the basic point of liberalism is undoubtedly the protection of individual rights, especially its core, the right to freedom. Proceeding from this base point, the following questions and answers are logically deduced: First, for the individual himself, because he believes that the rights of individuals such as freedom and property belong to a kind of "natural rights", which are inviolable and inalienable, the individual is the most fundamental and higher than the existence of society and the state for all things, which makes liberalism manifest as an "individualism". Secondly, in the case of the relationship between the individual and the external State, based on the defence of the rights of the individual, it is natural to conclude that the State must not interfere or infringe upon the rights of the individual, and to do so, the rule of the State (in the specific form of the Government) must be agreed to by the ruled. These two main points are precisely what Locke, the main founder of liberal doctrine, wanted to discuss.

The above two essential meanings of liberalism have grasped the fundamentals of political philosophy and laid a relevant ideological foundation for the establishment of modern Western countries and the formation of modernity. The importance of these fundamental ideas and their practical significance have been demonstrated by the experiences and lessons offered by history. Democratic society is people-oriented, protects the freedom of the individual, so that the individual's talents can be fully exerted, and the wealth created by the individual is protected, and the society will prosper and develop; on the contrary, the totalitarian society is "harsh and fiercer than the tiger", strangling the freedom of killing people, blocking the space for the creation of ideas and wealth, and the society will erupt into various crises and eventually decline.

What we should discern as to the individualism of the Enlightenment is that its spiritual essence is simply "people-oriented", that is, in the two poles of man and society, the individual is the original and fundamental existence, and society is composed of individuals and serves the individual. The individual is the end, and society is only the means to achieve these personal ends. The reason why the individual is the "book" lies in his inalienable rights to life, liberty and property, and in the precious value of these rights themselves. It is for this reason that the Government must be elected by the people, with the consent of the people, and with the aim of serving the people.

In addition to individualism as the basis of thought, Enlightenment liberalism encompassed a wide range of political and social philosophies, including values such as freedom, equality, and tolerance, as well as democracy, the rule of law, and the separation of powers and checks and balances necessary to achieve these values. These ideas of liberalism provide the theoretical guidance needed for institutional design for the transformation of the West to modern capitalist society, and thus form the modernity of Western society.

For the values involved in the above-mentioned liberalism and the means to achieve them, "freedom" is its core value, and in a certain sense, democracy, the rule of law, and the checks and balances of power all serve the purpose of "freedom". Locke, for example, believed that in the three aspects of freedom, life, and property, freedom is the essence, and all human rights are only the embodiment of freedom. The liberals of the Enlightenment spoke of freedom primarily as the freedom of the individual in the political and legal sense. Hobbes's definition: "The word freedom, in its exact sense, is a state in which external obstacles do not exist" is seen as a "classical statement" of the concept of freedom. This "external obstacle" is fundamentally a political "power", which means that freedom is essentially uncontrolled by power.

Rousseau, on the other hand, thought more deeply about this, and his famous question was that "man is born free, but he is always in chains", including in the constraints of coercive laws, so the conundrum he is trying to solve is how man can obey coercive laws without losing his freedom. Rousseau solved this dilemma with the theory of "public will", which he envisioned people making some kind of social convention, combined into a moral and collective community. Since the convention is made jointly, obedience to it is obedience to the will of the public, and therefore to obey oneself. Thus, if anyone refuses to obey the will of the people, the whole of society will force him to obey, that is, to force him to be free. This view of freedom by Rousseau is classified as "positive freedom" in Berlin's distinction between "positive freedom" and "negative freedom". By "positive freedom," Berlin means "the freedom to become one's own master," that is, this freedom is obtained through rational self-domination, self-control, and self-actualization.

For this free subject he does only what he is willing to do, which means that if he encounters obstacles, he removes the obstacles that hinder his will, whatever they may be, whether they come from nature, from the subject's uncontrolled passions, from irrational institutions or from the opposing will or actions of others, and so on. In a word, Berlin calls this doctrine of "positive freedom" positive, emancipated by reason. The logic of this doctrine is deduced, and for nature, the active liberal can theoretically be transformed by technical means, but what will be done with man who resists his free will? If possible, he should impose his will on the other, and likewise remove obstacles, even if such sweeping activities involve violence, cruelty, and enslavement of others, and may not hesitate; in particular, when the subject of such freedom is inflated from the individual into some kind of superhuman entity,-state, class, or nation—the doctrine of "positive freedom" leads to totalitarian, authoritarian results. Therefore, Berlin believes that "positive freedom" is the creed of many contemporary nationalists, totalitarians, etc., and this positive freedom is also one of the focal points of postmodernism's critique of modernity.

We can further look at the fundamental value of freedom in modernity from the philosophies of Kant and Hegel. Kant explicitly declared: "The legislation (philosophy) of human reason has two main goals, namely nature and freedom." "Freedom" here refers to moral freedom. As a philosopher who thought metaphysically about morality, Kant's discussion of freedom is different from Rousseau, Montesquieu and others who focused on freedom in the political sense, and his concept of "freedom" is at the "metaphysical" level, that is, to enter the thinking about "what man is" and the basis for why man is human. His answer to this question was, "Man is the end." The value and dignity of the human personality lies in the fact that it is morally self-disciplined, that is, it is morally legislated for what it wants to obey, and obeys these moral laws promulgated and established by itself; it is not otherwise, that is, it is swayed by external sensual desires. Further, morality can be self-disciplined because, as the subject of morality, man has free will. "Freedom" differs from the natural causal determinism, which can only unconditionally obey the mechanical causal relationship of cause and effect, such as when it rains, the earth must be wet, and "wet" is the inevitable result of the cause of "rain under the sky". "Freedom," on the other hand, is the ability to spontaneously begin a series of causes, that is, it is self-determined, it is the cause of its own actions, and it can be free from other conditions. In layman's terms, I can make decisions about my behavior and make choices, for example, I can now choose to go to the classroom to study for myself, I can choose to go to the library, and I can even choose to go to the movies.

This moral freedom of Kant is in nature a "priori freedom." The so-called "a priori" is relative to "experience". Experiential things come from external perceptible facts, while transcendental freedom comes from non-empirical, pure "reason" itself, and in moral action comes from man's "will" or "practical reason." This establishment of "a priori freedom" establishes the subjectivity of man for the understanding of what man is. There is no longer any Creator above man, man is the true "Spirit of all things," the measure of all things. He relies on his own reason and will, and without false pretense, he can legislate both for nature and morality.

Unlike Kant, which Kant sought to provide "a priori freedom" as the basis for moral legislation, Hegel's conception of liberty showed more of its realistic character. The tone of Hegel's conception of liberty is realistic because he emphasizes that the "right to liberty" of individuals can be realized subjectively "only when individuals belong to ethical reality". These so-called "ethical realities" of objective freedom manifest themselves in Hegel in three links: the family, civil society, and the state. Hegel regarded civil society as a field of "autonomy" for citizens independent of the state, giving citizens a space of freedom to retain their own interests and freedom from state interference. For him, civil society, as an "intermediary" between the "family" and the "state", aims at "private interests", it is a "system of needs" in the sense of economic activity, an area in which people pursue self-interest on the basis of contract. Since the means of satisfying needs are mainly labour, labour and the division of labour constitute the main elements of civil society. In addition, a major feature of Hegel's concept of civil society is its emphasis on the organization and order of civil society through trade associations and various autonomous groups, which implies the autonomous nature of civil society. He argues that the unorganized individual acts only completely spontaneously, irrationally, and even barbaric and terrifying, and that the individual cannot therefore deal directly with the state, and that his interests can be realized and protected only by entering the organic whole of the state in an organized manner.

/ The cornerstone of modernity: subjectivity

As a normative philosophy of modernity, we have already mentioned that it provides a discursive system of philosophical arguments about the purpose of modernity, the principles of modernity, and so on. Habermas once summed up this philosophical discourse system of modernity as "the self-confirmation of modernity." The most valuable of this self-confirmation is the idea of man, which is provided by metaphysics.

Metaphysics, according to Kant's boundary theory, derives from purely rational, non-empirical doctrines, i.e., on purely intellectual or rational concepts such as "categories" or "ideas"; this means that ideas about man can only be given by pure thought, which belongs to "metaphysical" things. The reason why the metaphysics of man is the most precious to the self-confirmation of modernity is because the confirmation of its purpose and principle by modernity, since it excludes the basis for justification from God, can only be given by man himself; since it cannot be given by theology, it can only be given by transcendental metaphysics.

And when metaphysics identifies "reason" as the essence of man, the self-confirmation of modernity is reduced to the question of "reason", to the question of the ability of reason to legislate not only for nature but also for morality. Only by transcendentally demonstrating this metaphysical capacity of reason can man replace God, philosophy can replace theology, and secular modernity have its rationality, thus opening a new page in history. This understanding of man and his reason is philosophically expressed as a philosophy of "subjectivity" and a "philosophy of consciousness" formed around the argument for reason as "self-conscious." These two philosophical forms became the basic forms of the philosophy of modernity, and Kant's philosophy became its prominent representative. The theme of Kant's philosophy, "What is Man," can thus be regarded as the theme of the philosophy of modernity; the philosophical discourse of modernity can accordingly be seen as unfolding around the axis of rational man. In this sense we can say that modernity in the philosophical sense is the modernity of man; it is precisely because of the concept of modern man that man in the modern sense is born, and the ideal modern society is constructed by such a person.

Kant's philosophy of subjectivity shaped the concept of "man" for modernity, which regards man as an end and as the "ultimate purpose" of the cosmic world. Kant does not hesitate to use the strongest words to praise man's ultimate purposefulness. Man is the "only" being, his purpose is a causality on which he can legislate morality; man as the ultimate purpose is "unconditional", he does not need anything else as a condition of his possibility; man is the ultimate aim because he is a moral being, and his "good will" gives him a certain "absolute value". Even the whole universe, despite its variety of creations, would be "meaningless" if there were no one; that is, "without anyone, the whole creation would be just a desert, in vain and without an ultimate purpose."

So was Kant, and so was Hegel. A clear aim of Hegel's philosophy is to grasp the "modern" epoch in which it lives. This is an "age of the old world on the verge of collapse", "an era of birth and transition of a new era". As a philosopher, Hegel's grasp of the times focused on its "new spirit" and "principles.". For spirit is the "noblest concept," the "essence" of things. He explicitly stated that "the modern world is based on the principle of the freedom of subjectivity". This freedom is expressed in cognition, that is, the grasp of the "inevitable", the grasp of the laws of nature and the laws of social history. In Phenomenology of Spirit, he is committed to grasping the "inner necessity" of the human spirit (consciousness) in the course of its development, that is, starting from the initial, direct perceptual consciousness, through the dialectical self-development links of self-consciousness, reason, spirit, and religion, and finally reaching the grasp of "absolute knowledge", that is, the concept of the human spirit to its highest state of knowledge. This freedom is expressed in the state and in society, that is, all essential things recognized by the rational spirit will be realized in reality. This is a further extension of the idea that freedom is the knowledge of necessity. Hegel was dissatisfied with leaving the spirit at the level of subjective ideas, but was convinced that thought must be transformed into reality. In the same way, "freedom" is not merely a subjective idea, but can be expressed as an objective, real right in "ethical entities", including the family, society, and the state. Hegel further regarded the unity of subjective and conceptual freedom with objective, realistic freedom as constituting the content of "rationality", and interpreted the form of rationality as "prescribing one's own actions according to the laws and principles of the thinking, i.e., the universality". Thus, in Hegel's philosophy, the principle of rational subjectivity, by manifesting itself as the intrinsic unity of law, freedom and rationality, becomes a principle that runs through knowledge and moral ethics, i.e., truth and goodness. Thus, although the philosophies of Hegel and Kant appear in different forms, Kant's philosophy, by answering the proposition of "what is man", directly affirms the rational capacity (theoretical rationality and practical reason) for "subjectivity", thus giving the problem of self-confirmation of modernity the problem of rationality legislating for nature and legislating for morality, while Hegel shows the free nature of the rational spirit through the grasp of "absolute knowledge", that is, essence and truth, thus relying on the unity of subjective freedom and objective freedom. The concept of "rationality" of the unity of laws (principles) and behavior to give answers to the question of self-validation of modernity. Thus, although the two philosophies of Kant and Hegel differ in form, they essentially belong to the same category of the philosophy of subjectivity, and both achieve the construction of modernity through the understanding of man, his nature and freedom—in Kant, it is manifested as man-made nature and moral legislation, and in Hegel, it is expressed in grasping the process of realizing itself in the fields of moral ethics and social state in modern society. Since the self-confirmation of modernity is based on the rational philosophy of subjectivity, once this philosophy of subjectivity is denied, the entire theoretical basis of modernity will be destroyed, and the discourse of modernity will be rewritten or even replaced by postmodernity.

Therefore, the negation of modernity by postmodernism is first denied by this philosophy of subjectivity, which denies its conception of man. Nietzsche denies the rational nature of man and orients the essence of man as life and its will. The "characteristics" or ills of modernity, which he characterized as the decline of the will to life, led to the dominance of instinct, and the lack of will of modern man became a "symbol of decadence". The modern spirit has thus fallen into a kind of "nihilism" in which the traditional value system has collapsed, and there is "no cure". Foucault reflected on what he considered to be the central question of philosophy and critical thought since the 18th century—what is reason? What are the historical consequences? By revealing that the "subject" is created by discipline by the omnipresent web of power (including prisons, hospitals, schools, sexual control, intellectual discourse, etc.), there is therefore no such thing as an independent, ubiquitous universal form of subject", but rather "the subject is established in enslavement and domination". Having made such a judgment about the nature of the "subject," Foucault reduced the concept of "man" in Enlightenment philosophy to some kind of "invention" and declared that "man dies" in this sense, that is, a natural consequence.

From the above thick lines, we can glimpse the significance of the concept of "subjectivity" for the philosophy of modernity, and its forefront of the battle between modernity and postmodernity philosophy. /