The reason why there is german classical philosophy now is because Marxist philosophy originates from it. The reason why we want to discuss German classical philosophy is because contemporary philosophers regard German philosophy as an important template for philosophy. But I would like to say that German classical philosophy has actually misled us and deviated us from the correct direction of the Western philosophical tradition.
——Jiang Yi
Philosophy is a difficult discipline to get started with, and it is also a more difficult discipline to understand. Ordinary people are far away from philosophy. Although since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Party has always advocated that the people of the whole country should learn some philosophy, but later we found that the philosophy we learned is different from the philosophy of imagination, and it is too closely related to non-philosophical things. So to this day, many people are still daunted by philosophy.
I don't know if you have ever thought about this question, why are philosophical concepts always disconnected from our lives? It is normal that people who are not specialized in philosophical research have not considered this question. But for those who study philosophy, this question has to be considered. I often wonder why, in today's China, when we discuss philosophy, why do we always use those concepts, those special abstract terms, to explain the world we are facing? Why can't we explain our thoughts and concepts in ordinary language, in a language that everyone can understand? This is a question I have been thinking about a lot in recent times by giving lessons to college students.
The reason why we regard philosophy today as an esoteric, incomprehensible, and even incomprehensible discipline is rooted in our misunderstanding of German classical philosophy. If we push this question a step further, that is, because German classical philosophy "mistakenly" went to another path of Western philosophy, notice that I am quoted in quotation marks for this mistake, so why should I put quotation marks? Because there is no distinction between error and correctness in philosophical theory, the reason why I call it wrong is because, in my opinion, it goes against the right path of the development of Western philosophy.
When I say this, some people who know german classical philosophy may wonder how rebellious it is to say that you are saying this. For the German philosophy, or German classical philosophy, as we understand it, should be regarded as the highest peak of Western philosophy; when we speak of Western philosophy, we must take German classical philosophy as its model. For example, Kant's philosophy, we even say that Kant's philosophy is a sign that philosophy can become a science and be able to exist. The reason why there is german classical philosophy now is because Marxist philosophy originates from it. The reason why we want to discuss German classical philosophy is because contemporary philosophers regard German philosophy as an important template for philosophy. But I would like to say that German classical philosophy has actually misled us and deviated us from the correct direction of the Western philosophical tradition.
German classical philosophy has a special place in China, as long as you have studied Marxist philosophy, you will know that Marxist philosophy has three theoretical sources: one is German classical philosophy, the other is the so-called political economy, that is, the political economy of Adam Smith, and the other is the so-called utopian socialism, and German classical philosophy is the core content of Marxist philosophy.
We usually think that both Marx and Engels should be regarded as students of Hegel, because they inherited Hegel's dialectics ideologically. What is dialectics? In Hegel, he understood dialectics as the unity of opposites and the movement of a thing. The unity of opposites and the change of movement constitute the essence of things. Then, under this premise, when we understand the dialectics, we will see that Hegel's dialectics itself contains concepts that we are uncertain and cannot be understood with empirical common sense.
The evolution brought about by German classical philosophy makes it difficult for us to understand Marxist philosophy today. So this difficulty was not brought about by Marx and Engels, but by Hegel's philosophy itself. So if we want to really understand Marxist philosophy, we must really understand German classical philosophy, and especially what Hegel's philosophy is doing. Therefore, the premise of understanding Marxist philosophy is to understand Hegel's philosophy, that is, to understand the history of the development of German classical philosophy. This is an important reason why I today raise German classical philosophy as a topic.
Of course, Marxist philosophy is usually regarded as another kind of Western philosophy in the whole of Western philosophy, or it is another fruit of the great tree of Western philosophy, which is also a general evaluation of the relationship between Marxist philosophy and Western philosophy. So to this day, when we talk about Western philosophy, we usually do not regard Marxist philosophy as a main part of Western philosophy. When you read the history of Western philosophy, you will find that there is no part of Marxist philosophy in it.
This is true not only in China, but also in the West. In the course of the history of Philosophy in the West, or in the writings, Marxist philosophy does not appear at all, and even if it does, it appears only as a very special form, such as in Russell's History of Western Philosophy. In other words, when we understand the special position of Marxist philosophy in German classical philosophy, especially in Chinese Marxist philosophy, we must look in reverse to what German classical philosophy has to offer us.
Of course, there is another aspect, that is, we can accept German classical philosophy today, in addition to Marxist philosophy, in fact, there is an important element, that is, German classical philosophy and Chinese philosophy or traditional Chinese philosophy spiritual temperament is more in line with, with similarities. You may find it difficult to understand where their similarities manifest themselves. Because traditional Chinese philosophy is about "emotion" and "righteousness", or about "heart" and "sex", we usually summarize the characteristics of Chinese philosophy as a philosophy of mind. "Mind" is not the same as "sex", "mind" indicates mind, talking about a state of cognition or consciousness in the human heart, while "sex" is our understanding of external things. Therefore, Chinese philosophy prefers or is more willing to grasp the external world with a concept that we can all perceive. Our understanding of any concrete object is grasped through a certain perception of "mind" and "sex", which is also expressed in German classical philosophy. If we understand a little Kant's philosophy, or the whole German classical philosophical tradition from Schelling all the way to Hegel, we can know that in fact, German philosophy as a whole works from the level of man's self-consciousness, and the object of its study is man's self-consciousness, and then the concept of consciousness in this self-consciousness is abolished and becomes the self, and finally the consciousness of the self is absolute, unconditional. Thus it can cancel this self-concept and eventually become absolute.
We will see the development of ideas from the process of self-awareness to absolutes. This is very much in line with the feeling of Chinese understanding China, and understanding the world from the perspective of the individual's mentality. After we start from the consciousness of the self, we can use the "mind" to construct the world. Therefore, Wang Yangming's philosophy of the mind is regarded as a very important representative of Chinese philosophy, because he emphasizes treating things with the heart and constructing things with the heart, which solves the problem of man's inner world, not the problem of man's external world. In the Chinese philosophical tradition, it is to explain the inner world, not to explain the external world.
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Famous philosopher, Doctor of Philosophy, Jiang Scholar Distinguished Professor of Education. He was the Dean of the School of Philosophy and Sociology at Beijing Normal University. Distinguished Professor of Shanxi University, Vice Chairman of the Steering Committee for the Teaching of Philosophy in Colleges and Universities of the Ministry of Education, Honorary Chairman of the Chinese Modern Foreign Philosophy Society, Honorary President of the Beijing Philosophical Society. His major works include: Wittgenstein: A Post-Philosophical Culture, Western Philosophy Toward the New Century, Modern Anglo-American Analytic Philosophy, and Mirror Images of Thought: From the Perspective of Philosophical Topology.
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Editor: Niu Yajie
Review: Gao Qiaoyan
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