1. Aristotle: The nature of man is to seek knowledge
Aristotle's first words in Metaphysics are: "Every man is by nature eager to learn." Aristotle used this aphorism to illustrate the origin of philosophy. A similar aphorism is: "Philosophy originates from leisure and astonishment." Aristotle explained that man's natural curiosity is the speculative activity of knowing for the sake of knowing and seeking wisdom for the sake of wisdom, and is not subordinate to any material interests and external ends, and is therefore the most free learning. Philosophical speculation initially manifests itself as "surprise," and surprise is curiosity. The earliest philosophers, out of curiosity to find out the roots and know what they were, were surprised by some of the phenomena in front of them, such as the sun, moon, stars, wind and rain, etc., and then pushed forward little by little, raising philosophical questions about the origin of the universe and the origin of all things.
In addition to "surprise", there must be "leisure" in engaging in philosophical activities. Imagine, if a person is running for a living every day, where will there be time to be "surprised"? If one can't even eat enough, how can one be in the mood to explore philosophical questions that are almost extravagant? In ancient Greece, philosophers were mostly aristocrats who did not have to work for their livelihoods, so they could engage in purely speculative activities. Aristotle rightly made "leisure" a necessary condition for philosophical speculation. Ancient Greece had a slavery system that was more developed than any other people, and the nobility enjoyed plenty of leisure. But leisure is only a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition, for all intellectual activity. Being able to use their leisure time to engage in philosophical speculation is something special about the Greeks.
Many philosophical friends often ask the question: What is the use of philosophy? This is a really hard question to answer. As Aristotle said, it is human nature to seek knowledge, and people seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge, for wisdom, rather than trying to get something else after philosophical thinking. Heidegger also said that if I had to ask about the use of philosophy, I would rather say: philosophy is useless.
A young man came to Socrates and said, "Socrates, I want to learn philosophy from you." Socrates asked him, "What exactly do you want to learn?" If you learn the law, you can master the skills of litigation; you can learn carpentry, you can make furniture; you can learn business, you can make money. So if you study philosophy, what can you do in the future? The youth could not answer.
Socrates wanted to enlighten the young man, and philosophy had no practical use.
There is also a story about a philosopher and a boatman having a conversation on a boat. "Do you understand philosophy?" "I don't understand." "Then you'll lose at least half your life." "Do you understand mathematics?" "I don't understand." "Then you've lost eighty percent of your life."
Suddenly, a huge wave overturned the boat, and both the philosopher and the boatman fell into the water.
Watching the philosopher struggle around in the water, the boatman asked the philosopher, "Can you swim?" "No... "Then you've lost one hundred percent of your life." ”
It seems that philosophy really has no use, and it is better to save lives at critical moments than to learn a skill with practical use.
But it is human nature to seek knowledge, and human beings do not first measure the usefulness of a science before deciding whether to continue to think. In the same way, philosophy is not chosen by human beings because it is "useful" and "useless"; in fact, you live in philosophy all the time, and man is ultimately a "philosophical" being. Philosophy, therefore, never dies, because man cannot deny his own nature.
2. Zeno: Human knowledge is like a circle
Human knowledge is like a circle, the inside of the circle is known, the outside of the circle is unknown. The more you know, the bigger the circle, and the more you don't know
Zeno was a famous philosopher of ancient Greece, a representative of the Elia school, a student and heir of Parmenides. Zeno is known as the "father of paradoxes", and he has four mathematical paradoxes that have been passed down to this day. He once told a story of "the circle of knowledge". The story goes like this: Once, a student asked Zeno, "Teacher, you have many times more knowledge than I do, and you answer the question very correctly, but why do you always have questions about your answers?" Zeno drew two circles, one large and one small, on the table, and pointed to the two circles and said, "The area of the big circle is my knowledge, and the area of the small circle is your knowledge." I know more than you. The outside of these two circles is the part of your ignorance and mine. The perimeter of the great circle is longer than the small circle, so I have come into contact with more ignorance than you do. That's why I often doubt myself. In this philosophical story, Zeno compares knowledge to circles, vividly revealing the dialectical relationship between knowledge and ignorance.
This story shows that a person has a certain amount of knowledge, and the more problems he contacts and thinks about, the more he feels that there are many problems that he does not understand, and thus the more he feels that his knowledge is poor; on the contrary, a person lacks knowledge and has a low ability to discover and think about problems, the more he feels that he has sufficient knowledge.
In fact, finding yourself ignorant is the manifestation of knowledge, and pride and complacency are mostly out of your own ignorance. Didn't Zhuangzi just say, "My life also has an end, and knowledge has no end." "The ocean of knowledge is vast, and the parts that people know are always extremely limited. Just like the relationship between the inside and the outside of the circle, the more knowledgeable the knowledge, the wider the unknowns that are exposed to, and the more questions there are. Conversely, the poorer the knowledge, the narrower the unknowns to be exposed to, and the fewer doubts there are. Only those who know nothing and do not learn anything will not feel their ignorance, is this not the greatest ignorance?
3. Heraclitus: One cannot step into the same river twice
Heraclitus, the founder of dialectics, who, like the Duke of Windsor of England in the 20th century, could inherit the throne of a Greek city-state, had no interest in it, and ceded the throne to his brothers because of his fascination with philosophy. The Duke of Windsor was a representative of his lack of love for beauty, and his beauty was still practical, but Heraclitus was obsessed with things that could not be touched and could not be seen.
Heraclitus believed that fire is the source of all things, and that the whole world, whether past, present, or future, is a flame that never stops burning. From this, he came to the conclusion that "all things flow, and nothing dwells permanently". The river flows endlessly, and when people step into the river for the second time, the water they encounter is no longer the original flow. For example, when you climb a mountain, the road to the top of the mountain and the way down the mountain are no longer the same way, because everything is so big that the universe is small that atoms are changing in an instant. There must be leaves falling on this road or leaves on the ground that have changed their position, earthworms, insects, bacteria in the middle and surface of the soil are shuttling, and part of the soil itself is rotting, and part of it is turning into stone, but the human eye cannot see it.
Heraclitus also believed that human wisdom is only about speaking the truth, and that everything else is inadequate. That said, even if your nostrils can discern any smell of smoke, you won't be excellent. In his eyes, there are very few wise people, and most people are bad. He is both unsociable and contemptuous of everything. In his later years, he retired to an abandoned temple. The wilderness is sparsely populated and has to eat grass root bark. After suffering from edema, he went down the mountain to look for a doctor in the city, but he did not talk to the doctor, but only used dumb gestures, so that the doctor did not understand what it was. He hid alone in the cattle pen, using cow dung to get close to him, trying to use the heat of cow dung to expel the water from his body, and between about 480 BC and 470 BC, this arrogant ascetic eventually returned to the earth.
Although Heraclitus is gone, his teachings still affect us today, especially the famous saying that "people cannot step into the same river at the same time", which we still remember vividly. Hegel commented that Heraclitus was the first founder of dialectics. When Hegel read about him, he said emotionally: I sailed in the vast sea and saw a new land.
One cannot step into the same river twice, for all things change, and this river is no longer the other. Yes, everything is changing, many things can not go back to the past at all, rather than mourning the passing river, it is better to cherish the present and grasp the present.
"We rarely think about what we have, but we always think about what we lack." Schopenhauer's words profoundly reveal the nature of human nature.
Those who have want to give up, those who don't want to have, maybe this is life. But life also tells us that some things may be lost and regained, such as health, money, status, friends, etc., and some things will not be lost again, such as youth and life.
We always think that we live somewhere else, but in fact, life is all around us. The river of time generally flows slowly under our feet, never to return. More than 2,000 years ago, Confucius once lamented on the river: the deceased is like Si. At about the same time, Heraclitus uttered the maxim "One cannot step into the same river twice." The distant voices of the sages still echo in your ears today, and you must remember: cherish everything you have, cherish everything worth cherishing.
4. Machiavelli: Politics has no morality
Machiavelli was a famous Italian political thinker, diplomat and historian. He was a jurisprudent who was deeply influenced by the Renaissance, advocating the establishment of a unified Italian state, free from foreign aggression, and ending the long debate between ecclesiastical and monarchical power, which in his view was the most ideal. His famous book "On monarchs" is to discuss how a kingdom can be preserved and how it can be lost, thus summarizing the monarch's way of governing the country. Machiavelli's aim was to teach Lorenzo to build a solid and strong state and unify Italy. After writing it, he secretly presented it to Lorenzo Jr., and did not want to make it public. So the language is very frank and undisguised. It was not until five years after Machiavelli's death that he was made public.
Machiavelli believes that politics, including international politics, is, in essence, a struggle for power and profit, and has nothing to do with moral principles such as justice and benevolence. He said that the means and measures of political domination should be completely distinguished from religious, moral and social influences, unless they directly affect political decision-making. Whether a decision is too cruel, untrustworthy or illegitimate is in his view irrelevant. Machiavelli separates not only religion from political law, but also ethics and morality from political law. "For political truth to develop, one must first abandon one's two companions, theology and ethics," because "morality and politics are not the same thing." "Morality is nothing more than qualities that contribute to the attainment of this goal. Moral and ethical goodness is nothing more than a means of achieving worldly goals such as material achievement or positions of power... Theology and ethics are both instruments of politics, and politics is the art of practice that uses all tools to achieve ends. ”
According to Machiavelli, "politics" becomes synonymous with the "public sphere", and "morality" is classified as the "private sphere", forming a "mirror" relationship between the two that contrasts himself by opposing the other: a person becoming a good ruler means that he must be defined as a villain by the standards of the private sphere; and applying the code of conduct of the private sphere to the public sphere is tantamount to self-destruction. He pointed out that the use of power and power does not have to be bound by morality. Morals are naturally praised, but politically, there is no need to ask what is justified and what is improper. Only what is beneficial and what is harmful should only be asked. When something moral is detrimental to the interests of the state and to the personal security of the monarch, it should not be done. When immorality is good for the state and the monarch, it should be done without hesitation. Don't be suspicious. "If a man acts in full accordance with virtue, he will soon suffer misfortune and his family will be destroyed," said Machiavelli, "and if one wants to maintain one's position as a prince, one must know how to do unrighteousness." ”
When Machiavelli calls "politics without morality," he is mainly emphasizing that politics should be separated from morality. If politics and morality are likened to games, the rules of the game are very different, and if the rules of morality are followed in the political sphere, or the rules of politics are pursued in the moral sphere, they are bound to be thwarted.
Machiavelli's point makes some sense. From my personal standpoint and perspective, I fully agree. Politics seeks a kind of power, and if it is bound by morality, it must be afraid of the end and dare not let go of its hands and feet. Just as in fighting wars on the battlefield, paying attention to soldiers is not tired of deception, and the same is true of politics, if we follow the moral principle of "being loyal and honest in life", it is estimated that we will never be able to win the battle. Don't we remember the Song Xianggong in the history of Chinese philosophy? He preached benevolence and righteousness everywhere, and always stressed benevolence and righteousness, but as a result, he missed the fighter plane and was killed by the enemy and defeated. Someone once commented that Song Xianggong was "a military man as stupid as a pig." There are many examples in history that politicians with moral hearts end up because of the "benevolence of women", the small ones harm themselves, and the big ones destroy the country. For example, Xiang Yu, because he emphasized xinyi, did not want to take the opportunity to kill Liu Bang at the Hongmen banquet. In the face of shy morality that only needs to pierce a layer of paper, the young and vigorous Xiang Yu should take into account credit, reputation, and the views and tongues of those around him. Although he was powerful and had the greatest merits, he was uneasy because of the clause of the Covenant of the King of Huai, "The King of the First To Break Qin into Xianyang", and tied his hands and feet everywhere, and lost the opportunity to destroy Liu Bang at the Hongmen Banquet; in the struggle with Liu Bang, he was tortured everywhere by the moral stick danced by Liu Bang. Even when he failed miserably in the end, he killed himself because of the moral face of "refusing to cross Jiangdong" and lost the opportunity to make a comeback.
Then again, if the rules of politics are applied to the moral sphere, the result is just as bad. If you still want to engage in conspiracies and fight for interests against your relatives and friends, you can't say it. So Machiavelli is right: politics belongs to the "public sphere" and morality belongs to the "personal sphere."
5. Einstein: Science without religion is a cripple, and religion without science is blind
Albert Einstein said, "The most incomprehensible thing in nature is that nature can be understood." He added, "Science without religion is a cripple, and religion without science is blind." It seems that the life of this great scientific man was spent in the two major ideological systems of science and religion. In any case, a force of nature that transcends intelligent life can be universally felt. Religion attributes the source of this natural force to God; science has not yet had a perfect answer to this. Perhaps, in this world, there will always be things and phenomena that we simply cannot explain with science. What can we do about all this other than marvel at the wonder of the Creator?
Or what Einstein said, "I want to know how God created the world... What I want to know is his thoughts. "It was faith in God that gave these great scientists enthusiasm for exploring the mysteries of the universe." God does not play dice, and science can only be created by those who are thoroughly immersed in the pursuit of truth and understanding. However, the source of this feeling comes from the realm of religion. The conviction of a possibility also belongs to this realm; the possibility is that the laws applicable to the existential world are rational, i.e., can be generalized by reason. I cannot conceive of a true scientist without such deep convictions. It is also for this reason that in the West, great scientists are at the same time devout religious believers. I can make a whole list: Newton, Einstein, Descartes, Russell, Leibniz...
We have always advocated the spirit of science, regarding the level of science as a sign of civilization and science as the sworn enemy of religion. Perhaps after reading Einstein's words, we really know that science and religion are so inextricably linked at the source. Turning to the history of science in the West, how many scientists have transformed the martyrdom of religion into scientific dedication, Archimedes, Copernicus, Bruno... The stories they leave behind are not only shocking, but also thought-provoking. When the Roman army captured the ancient city of Syracuse, Archimedes was playing a geometric problem in the sand. Faced with the enemy's dangling weapons, the sun-god mathematician calmly made the last request of his life: Wait a minute, let me solve this problem first... In order to establish the scientific theory of "heliocentrism", which was so defiant that the world was great, Copernicus almost exhausted the energy of the second half of his life, and finally made the book "The Theory of the Movement of Celestial Bodies" public at the end of his life. In order to uphold this scientific conclusion, Bruno was expelled, exiled, imprisoned, and burned at the stake.
There are so many such examples that Hans Christian Andersen asserted in his fairy tale The Glorious Thorny Road: "Unless the world itself is destroyed, this rank will never be exhausted!" ”
Both science and religion originated from the impulse of human beings to explore the universe and themselves, but as science has made more and more progress, in the hearts of some people, it has also become a religious belief, but the essence of the scientific spirit is the spirit of doubt, which itself opposes any form of worship, and in the face of science, any truth is short-lived.
6. Hobbes: A contract without a sword is nothing more than a blank slate
A contract without a sword is nothing more than a dead letter, and it has no power to guarantee the safety of a person—Hobbes
Hobbes (1588-1679) was born on 5 April 1588 in Wiltshire to a clergyman family. He graduated from Oxford University in 1608. Living in a revolutionary era of fierce political and religious struggles, he advocated absolute monarchy, which was opposed by Congress and exiled to France in 1640. The royalists appreciated Hobbes' views. After the restoration of the monarchy, he was favored and received an annuity. But in the religious strife over the restoration of Catholicism and the exclusion of the state religion, his Leviathan was persecuted as an "atheist" heretic. In 1666 Parliament banned Leviathan and banned his political treatises from being published in England.
Under the influence of the mechanistic theory of the time, Hobbes tried to introduce the mechanistic theory into social analysis and proposed the socio-state theory. Imagine what the "natural state" of man without a state and society would look like, he said. First, like orphans abandoned in the wilderness at birth, we are alone, we can only manage ourselves, in a state of "self-preservation". This is accompanied by the fear of insecurity brought to us by our helplessness, desolation, and presence of beasts; and second, in order to survive, we eat in the wind, wander around, and feed on the limited wild fruit, and at this time we happen to meet many people who have to live on this wild fruit as we do, because natural resources are scarce, and we have to join the battle for bones like a few lost dogs, biting you to death. Because no one is invincible, in the fierce competition of constant conflict, everyone is precarious in the insecurity that can be hurt at any time.
Everyone's opposition to others for the sake of self-preservation brings uncertainty of fate and psychological fear. One day a watchmaker passed by and said to the beating crowd, "Why don't you make a deal and hand you over to me, and I will make you feel sure and safe like a pendulum, and never have to fight, don't worry about your lives, and focus your limited energy on finding food and water." "Everyone thinks this proposal makes a lot of sense. So, a contract was made. Some give power to one monarch (the watchmaker), and some to several watchmakers (parliaments). Moreover, in order to ensure that the watchmaker has the strength to prevent people from breaking the contract at will, and to give him/them powerful force. Thus the pendulum of society, the state, was born.
To learn about Hobbes, it is impossible not to review the history of the English Civil War. At the beginning of the 17th century, the contradictions between the English bourgeoisie, the new aristocracy and the feudal autocracy of the Stuart dynasty were acute. Beginning in 1842, Cromwell's congressional army fought twice in civil war with the king's army, and in 1649 Charles I was executed, officially declaring Britain a republic and free state (Commonwealth of England) with "no king and upper house". Cromwell died in 1658, Charles II, with the support of the royalists, returned to London to ascend the throne, the Stuart dynasty was restored, and the English Civil War ended.
Like the French Revolution, the bloody upheaval and anarchy brought about by the English Civil War doused enthusiasm before the revolution began. The desire for peace and tranquillity wears people tired of war and death, and political conservatism rises at the right time and requires the systematic transmission of theoretical spokesmen. Hobbes was right. His political conservatism led Britain towards benign and orderly political reforms that won Britain a hundred years of stability and prosperity.
Curiously, Hobbes's theory of absolute statism was not only used by totalitarian despotism, but more often by liberals as the forerunners of liberal capitalism. Recall his theory: he compares the individual to a component of a clock, achieving the function of social harmony by playing the role of the individual; treating the individual as the subject of the social contract and retaining the individual's right to pursue wealth and fame; the sovereign exists only to protect the security of the individual and cannot restrict their other freedoms, all of which presuppose the components of a free, self-interested, happy, and rational human being. And freedom, self-interest, happiness, reason, is exactly what Adam? Liberal capitalist theoreticians such as Smith and Bentham insisted on the characteristics of man. Along the lines of individual self-preservation, to the sanctity of rights, to the pursuit of pleasure and profit, Hobbes's theory transcends authoritarian totalitarianism and clearly points to the future of liberal capitalism. Although hobbes is still debated as today about whether or not he was a liberal, it is undeniable that his ideas evolved into liberal conclusions.
7. Plato: The masses live forever in the cave of ignorance
Plato had a very important metaphor in his important work The Republic, the cave parable. The story goes like this: There was a cavernous basement with a long passage leading out, and faint sunlight shining in through the passage. Some prisoners have lived in caves since childhood, their heads and necks and legs and feet tied, unable to move or turn their heads, and can only look forward at the back wall of the cave. Above them, a torch burned in the distance. In the middle of the torch and the people there is a raised road, and at the same time there is a low wall. Behind this wall, towards the firelight, there were some other people. They held in their hands all kinds of dummies or beasts, lifted them high over the wall, and made them move, and these people sometimes talked and sometimes did not make a sound. Thus, the prisoners could only see the images projected on the walls in front of them. They will treat these images as real, and they will treat echoes as what the images say. Later, one of the prisoners was shackled and forced to suddenly stand up, to turn his head and look around, and he could now see the thing itself: but they thought that what he was seeing now was a non-essential dream, and that the image he first saw was real. Later, when someone else took him out of the cave and walked under the sun, he would feel that Venus was bursting in front of him because of the stimulation of the light, so that he could not see anything. He would hate the man who brought him to the sun, who blinded him to the real thing and caused him pain.
For this rescued prisoner, seeing the sunlight outside really didn't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. He spends so much time in a dark (symbolically illusory, unreal) environment that he mistakenly believes that what is illusory is real, and feels harsh and uncomfortable with the sunlight outside (which symbolizes truth). Here Plato uses the metaphor of the prisoners in the cave to the masses, to whom the truth is harsh and can only live forever in the cave of ignorance! And only philosophers who look up to the unchanging ideas in the sky can approach the truth.
Through the cave metaphor, Plato wants to convey to us the message that we are only facing phenomena, and essence is outside phenomena. If we want to know the essence, we must "turn" - not the turn of the body, but the "turn of the soul", plato means: we cannot know the essence from phenomena, and in order to know the essence (ideas), the turn of the soul is necessary: from phenomena to ideas. For in Plato's view, phenomena are phenomena, phenomena cannot be the "carrier" of essence, and pure ideas cannot exist in phenomena in any case.
Plato's cave parable, therefore, tries to tell us that what we see in our daily lives is only phenomena, and the truth of facts is in another world; to know the truth of facts, a turn of the soul is necessary—from phenomena to ideas; phenomena are objects of sensory experience, and ideas are objects of thought. These have constituted the basic ideas of Western philosophy for a long time. Whitehead is not without exaggeration to say that the history of Western philosophy for more than 2,000 years is nothing more than a footnote to Plato. Of course, Plato's cave metaphor was fiercely challenged in 20th-century Western philosophy because it represented the traditional philosophical rationalist, essentialist line of thought. Heidegger's analysis of Plato's cave is interesting.
Heidegger analyzes Plato's cave parable throughout his essay The Theory of Truth by Plato. Plato believed that phenomenon = illusion; essence = truth, behind the phenomenon! Heidegger wants to turn Plato's upside-down world upside down, but not simply. He believes that we have lived in darkness, and in order to find a home, we have lit candles and chased the light, but we have become more and more attached to the light, forgetting that our home is in the dark. As a result, we lose ourselves in the light, culminating in a technological civilization that is "brighter than a thousand suns." Heidegger, on the other hand, tried to "turn" again, quoting Lao Tzu as saying, "Know its whiteness and keep it black," and his explanation is: "The dead should submerge themselves in the source of darkness so that they can see the stars during the day." "Look at the stars during the day. That's our home.
8. Popper: If we admit defeat too cheerfully, we may not realize that we are very close to being right
Popper was a famous philosopher of science and technology of the 20th century. His most famous theory lies in the critique of classical observation, inductive method, proposing the criterion for falsification from experimentation: distinguishing between "scientific" and "non-scientific". Politically, he embraced democracy and liberalism and proposed a series of socially critical laws that laid the theoretical foundation for an "open society."
Like Hume, Popper questioned induction. Hume had suggested that we see the sun rise every day, but we are not sure that the sun will rise tomorrow. Hypotheses cannot be rationally justified by precedent. Popper's view, on the other hand, is combined with his principle of "wrongfulness." Since it is impossible to prove that the sun will rise tomorrow, he said, we can only assume a theory that the sun will rise. If the sun does not rise the next day, then this theory is wrong. However, until the day the sun does not rise, this theory cannot be falsified (proven false). Popper thus derived the criterion for dividing scientific theories: if a theory can be falsified, the theory is scientific.
Therefore, only one black swan is enough to overturn the conclusion that all swans are white. New scientific conclusions, replacing old ones, can explain more phenomena. Thus, Popper derived from the unreliability of induction the preciousness of science: scientific knowledge is not equal to truth, scientific knowledge is only conjecture. The peculiarity of science is that it can be falsified, and science continues to evolve precisely because it can be constantly falsified. Conversely, the marginal metaphysical empty words and pseudosciences, though they may never be refuted, will never be of any use. Only science can approach the truth step by step by constantly falsifying it, and the real mission of the scientist is to try to falsify his own theory, not to try to finally prove it, because the truth can only be constantly approached, not finally achieved.
"The pursuit of truth is more precious than the possession of truth", this is a philosophical quote of the German Enlightenment thinker and literary theorist Lessing. Einstein loved this phrase so much that he took it as his motto.
Ponder carefully, this sentence is not saying that life is like a journey, people in the journey, there are hopes and joys and fears, there are hates and loves and thoughts for the journey of fulfillment, but the target itself is only a concept of the ultimate? As Planck said, "Scientific research tends to conform to such a truth, the goal is lofty, and it is often even difficult to achieve." However, in the process of research, many unexpected truths can be successfully derived. "Yes, the destination is important, but the process of finding it is even more fascinating. Immersed in the process, dedicated to the search process that is not troubled by the fate of the future, the meaning of life will be more complete.
Remember, not being dominated by possessiveness, seeking is freedom. The end of the world belongs to the mind that waits for the end of the world. Please don't wait, always like yesterday, just look calmly, I believe that the world is always progressing, and human beings are always getting farther and farther away from the beasts every day. You must not let fate drag you along, let alone be a slave to fate.
9. Comte: Knowledge is for foresight, foresight is for power
Auguste-Comte was a famous French philosopher, founder of sociology, and positivist philosopher. He criticized theology and metaphysics, emphasizing that knowledge arises from sensory experiences and comes from observations of the world around it. He believed that all man knew was empirical phenomena, or of the constant primacy and similarity between facts, and that science sought these relations, expressing them in the most simplified way, and thus producing laws.
According to Comte, the history of human spiritual development can be divided into three stages: the first stage is the theological-imaginary stage, in which people pursue the ultimate causes of the existence and movement of things and reduce these causes to supernatural subjects; the second stage is the metaphysical-abstract stage, in which the theological worldview is replaced by a metaphysical worldview, in which people interpret concrete phenomena with abstract "substance" concepts; the third stage is the scientific-empirical stage, in which the stage, People recognize the limitations and limitations of the human spirit, no longer pursue a metaphysical way of thinking, and base themselves on the discovery of the actual relations and laws of phenomena.
Human history went through a process from superstition or metaphysics to science, and by the third stage when society was governed by scientists, people entered the stage of reality. Science itself is about description, inference, and control: scientists start with observed events, and through description, precisely deduce the rules of the laws of nature, and once those rules are mastered, they can infer these events in turn. Finally, when the goal is manipulated by description and inference, the rules of science control the possibilities of nature. Therefore, true scientists should use observable events as reference entities and avoid explaining why they occur when they cannot be observed.
Comte's words should be expressed in this way: the mastery of knowledge is for prediction, prediction is for control, and the ability to control will then be transformed into a power--a power to control laws and predict the future.
The main function of knowledge is to grasp the laws. If you can't grasp the law, you can't talk about prediction and control. A very obvious example is physical activity. A person who does not understand the rules of the game is doomed to lose. Unless he is familiar with and adapts to these rules, there is no chance of winning. This is also the case in life, a person who does not understand the rules of life is destined to touch the nail. It was under the influence of Bacon's "knowledge is power" and then Comte's "knowledge is power" that the West's fascination with knowledge has reached an insurmountable point. However, just as science and technology are flourishing, it is also increasingly deviating from our original intention and moving towards the opposite of our purpose. Western proverbs say, "The closer we get to the truth, the freer we are." "But we are now more and more under the oppression of knowledge. So much so that Nietzsche wondered, "How is truth so valued that it places us under its absolute control?" ”
Modern us, who seem to live very freely, are actually becoming less and less free. For a simple example, with the development of science and technology and the popularity of the Internet, we do not know how many passwords to remember every day, the password of the bank card, the password of the credit card, the password of the email address, the password of various accounts... If one day, we forget one of them, our lives will be greatly affected, and you can imagine: if you go out one day and forget to bring your mobile phone or laptop, what will it mean? Knowledge facilitates us, but in turn becomes a shackle that governs us. "As soon as man thinks, God laughs", man thinks he is very clever, but in fact he has embarked on a road of no return, because we can no longer return to the era without knowledge.
Knowledge is now less and less out of our control, but it has begun to control us because of its authority, and finally become a power.
10. Pythagoras: Harmony is everything
Pythagoras was a famous greek philosopher and mathematician. Pythagoras attached great importance to mathematics, believing that numbers were the source of the world and trying to explain everything with numbers. It is said that he invented the word "mathematics", and it was he who brought the concept of numbers to prominence. He abstracted the number five from things like five apples, five fingers, and so on. This may seem like a normal thing today, but it was a huge step forward in the philosophical and practical mathematical circles of the time. In practical mathematics, it makes arithmetic possible. Philosophically, this discovery led to the belief that numbers are the basis of the physical world.
Pythagoras used deductive method to prove that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of two right angle edges, that is, Pythagorean theorem. He did many studies of number theory, distinguishing natural numbers into odd, even, prime, complete, square, trigonometric, and pentagram numbers. In the Pythagorean view, numbers provided a conceptual model of the universe, with numbers and shapes determining the form of all natural objects. Numbers not only have quantities, but also have geometric shapes, and in this sense they understand numbers as forms and images of natural objects, which are the general root of all things. Because, with numbers, there are geometric points, with points there are lines and three-dimensional, with three-dimensional there are fire, gas, water, earth these four elements, thus constituting all things, so the number is first in things. All phenomena and laws in nature are determined by numbers and must be subordinated to the "harmony of numbers", that is, to obey the relations of numbers.
Pythagoras was a philosopher and mathematician, but he was largely a philosopher, not a mathematician, much less a scientist, although his doctrines contributed greatly to the emergence and development of mathematics and science and technology. For him, the study of the harmony of numbers is not to discover mathematical theorems or axioms, but to explore the harmonious structure of the numbers of the world, to prove the harmony of the universe with the harmony of numbers, and thus to provide more evidence and support for his thesis that the source of mathematics is the source of all things. Moreover, mathematical research is not, or is primarily, a means of addressing clothing, food, shelter, or transportation, but an effective way of exploring the "origin of the universe," a supersensory object.
It is said that in order to celebrate the discovery of the Pythagorean theorem, the Pythagorean sect once held a "Hundred Bull Sacrifice". However, it is difficult to imagine that in ancient societies where the level of productivity was still quite low, the discovery of this theorem could create the value of a hundred cattle in the hands of a generation. It can be seen that the most utilitarian science of real life did not arise from the utilitarian desire itself; the Pythagoreans wanted to carry out the "hundred cattle sacrifice" only because they firmly believed that through the discovery of the Pythagorean theorem, they had come one step closer to the gods.
Without Pythagorean formula, there would be no mathematics, and you can imagine its importance.