When is a good time to study philosophy?
Zhao Lin pointed out in Lectures on the History of Western Philosophy that when people are generally in a state of vigorous development and struggle, philosophy is a cumbersome cultural luxury. Only when we are in a state of peace does philosophy become a rigid need to relieve helplessness and boredom and give people spiritual comfort. The epidemic has pressed the pause button on life, and the hustle and bustle of material things has calmed down. Perhaps we have never needed spiritual life and philosophy as much as we do now.
We recommend these philosophy books recently published by the Utopia: "Starting from Surprise: The First Lesson of Philosophy for Teenagers" aims to stimulate the public's interest in philosophy. Scenarios, connect daily life with philosophy; Lectures on the History of Western Philosophy are lectures for the general philosophy course taught by Zhao Lin at the university. In a thick volume, it talks about the dazzling ancient Greek philosophy to Hegel. , readers need some patience to dive into it, so that the unfamiliar names of philosophers become familiar, train their philosophical thinking and critical spirit, and also experience a kind of pleasure in acquiring knowledge; Chen Jiaying 's "Perception, Reason, Self-cognition" discusses The pair of concepts of perception and understanding, but spends more pen and ink to guide readers to construct themselves in continuous speculation.
In the fierce battle between Russia and Ukraine, let us turn our attention to the distance. Liu Yu's "The Art of Possibility: 30 Lectures on Comparative Politics" analyzes more than a dozen countries, showing various ways of political creation of possibility, in order to better analyze and compare. A good understanding of the present; also a political science work, Zhou Lian's "Legitimacy Foundation of Modern Politics" redefines political legitimacy and justification and draws a conceptual map between political obligations and political responsibilities.
"Start with Surprise: Philosophy Lessons for Teenagers": Proving that "Philosophy Works"
In an era with too much emphasis on biology, physics, and science, it seems that it is not easy to prove that "philosophy is effective". When people know themselves, they always cite biological understanding. For example, an inexplicable crush of curiosity is It's not dopamine that is at work. When you feel bad luck, you want to calculate the astrolabe to see if Mercury is retrograde. When you are not sure about things, you always want to ask for big data. People's lives and fortunes seem to have become something that can be calculated.
So when does philosophy come into play? The first is about "existence", about people's fundamental, profound and huge questions, such as people's spirit and morality, people's will and beauty, people's rights and freedoms, people's values and ideals. Philosophy is answering these questions. questions, and develop in speculation and clarification from generation to generation. Rather than stop at a certain concept, the scholars in the book try to sort out a path for the evolution of philosophical concepts. In the chapter "Self, Existence, and Dwelling", Leng Xin starts from Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" and believes that: Descartes painted a picture of a "thinker" who is always doubting (and confirming by doubt), apprehending, affirming and denying, willing or unwilling, imagining and feeling, the long thinker The image of the symbol symbolizes the entire Western mindset - with strong subjectivity and immanence, and showing absolute individualism.
In the 20th century, people found that the concept of "I think" was too intrinsic and absolute, so Heidegger's "existence" theory became more effective. Heidegger believed that the essence of human beings is determined by human existence. , we have emotions, have a relationship with the world, and are determined by the world because of our "existence". The existence of modern man is as suggested in Pound's poem "these faces in the crowd appear ghostly, the petals blossom on the wet black branches", a vulgar, average idea of the existential "i am the They" makes People indulge in daily life, and then move towards a natural indifference and nothingness.
The French philosopher Lenavis, who suffered the devastation of World War II, put forward the concept of "residence". We are familiar with the expression "man is born...". "Man is born" needs a suffix. According to Lenavis, this suffix is the dwelling place of human body and mind. The dwelling place of human being can be home, or it can be Where it exists, it can also be an ideal. Levinas' "residence" is also what the Chinese call "a place to live and live", and the concept of residence has also evolved a concept of enjoyment, that is, "this place of peace is my hometown", a person's "residence" does not have to be very important, It may be a cup of coffee every morning, a good meal, life has its desolation and tragedy, but people are born with a place to live. From these philosophical concepts, we understand the indifference of human beings, and we also feel peaceful for the existence of "abode".
The situations we encounter in our lives are ever-changing, but "every change is inseparable from its sect". Philosophy is the sect hidden behind the phenomenon. Mastering the key of philosophy will give you a broader perspective that is separated from the phenomenon. For example, in the seventh lecture of the book "Mind Problems: From Robots and Zombies", we will find that all robots and zombies actually discuss the issues of "mind" and "body", an important branch of contemporary philosophy - philosophy of mind is to discuss this issue.
Aside from this big problem that must be solved, we are always curious about the world and may ask "why" at any moment, and philosophy is the answer to these questions. As Liu Qing, one of the authors of the book, said: "Humans want to know what, why, and how everything we face... This is a concern for our existence, and this concern is innate. But at the same time, it can also be developed into a conscious awareness of questioning. In daily life, these curiosity may be forgotten and marginalized, but it will never be extinguished.”
"Lectures on the History of Western Philosophy" is a transcript of the general philosophy courses taught by Zhao Lin at Wuhan University and Southeast University. Zhao Lin's history of Western philosophy begins with ancient Greek philosophy and follows the clues of the history of thought all the way down to Hegel's philosophy.
In the narrative, Zhao Lin introduces the main propositions of each philosopher in sections and sections, and also mixes some doubts and speculations. Think matter is inherently in motion? And how did the first, the first matter move? Why did Newton bring out a God in his cosmology? This point, which is not expressed at the beginning, is answered ten chapters later with Kant's "Nebula Hypothesis".
Reading a long history of philosophy is like running down a river. The further downstream you go, the harder it is to tell which rivers are holding up and reading to this place. If you want to make a clear line, you need to go back to the upstream from time to time to carefully identify it. The first lecture of Lectures on the History of Western Philosophy talks about what philosophy is and the function of philosophy. Zhao Lin defines "philosophy as a skeptical spirit and critical consciousness that grows and develops in an endless process of self-denial". In the next two to six lectures on Greek philosophy, it is fully reflected. Standing at the beginning of philosophy, ancient Greek philosophy embodies a kind of living wisdom. Although there is no lack of childishness in it, philosophers They are like a wave of waves, and the latecomers are carefully flooding on, and even drowning their predecessors, and finally form a fierce symphony of forward and backward.
Zhao Lin mentioned that the thinking of early philosophers involved almost all the profound issues that human thinking can focus on. Moreover, the philosophical viewpoints of the Greek philosophers are fresh and accessible, showing the free mind's thinking and concern for the universe and life. Philosophy is not the flavor of their life, but the way of life and their supreme pursuit. As a reading habit, Zhao Lin focuses a lot of his writing on the personality and family background of the philosopher himself. Understanding these contents will also help to understand and remember his philosophical propositions. For example, Heraclitus is a royal family and can inherit the throne, which makes him have a strong sense of elitism, but he is cynical by nature and actively chooses a life of isolation, so his thoughts are obscure and mysterious; and Democritus In his later years, he blinded himself in order to immerse himself in philosophy more intently.
Zhao Lin also believes: "From ancient Greek philosophy to Hegelian philosophy in the 19th century, they all have a fixed complex - to ask what is the essential thing behind the phenomenon of things. After Hegel, especially Western philosophers in the 20th century moved towards phenomenology and existentialism, and stopped asking about the essence.” “History of Western philosophy and modern Western philosophy have always been two independent courses. . . . I have no interest in modern philosophy, because modern Philosophy has become more and more a skill of rigid norms, rather than profound wisdom. Since Minerva's owl was released by Hegel, the twilight of philosophy has been followed by a long night of spirituality ."
Zhao Lin tried his best to sort out a concise clue in the complicated history of philosophy, focusing on the most important viewpoints of the most important philosophers.
Taking the second lecture "Greek Natural Philosophy (Ancient Greek Philosophy of Materialism)" as an example, the author focuses on presenting the conjectures put forward by various factions on the nature of the world. The earliest Thales of Miletus creatively proposed that "the origin of all things is water", and his student Anaximander put forward a more explanatory "the origin of the world is Apelang (amorphous)", which leads to " "Apelang" is the first real philosophical concept in the history of Western philosophy focusing on "nothing"; Anaximenes, the third philosopher of the Miletus school, proposed that the origin of the world is a Although it is amorphous, it has inner meaning - Qi. Heraclitus, the representative of the Ephesian school of the same period, put forward the theory of the origin of fire, and put forward a more important theory about logos. Heraclitus believed that logos is a mysterious rule, a kind of Abstract scale. After him, Empedocles no longer stopped at a certain element, but put forward the "Four Roots Theory" (things arise from water, fire, earth, and air, and are formed by the two elements of "love" and "hate". This is the source of the construction theory of Greek natural philosophy; when Anaxagoras proposed the "seed theory", he first proposed a spiritual entity-Nus ( It is also translated as soul), Nus can cause all things in the world to come together, to develop to Democritus, the master of Greek natural philosophy, the "atomic theory" was put forward, he put a kind of abstraction of thought rather than a kind of Concrete things are the source of all things.
In Lecture 7, "Medieval Christian Philosophy", when the author talks about patristic philosophy and scholastic philosophy, he focuses on the relationship between reason and faith. As introduced in the previous lectures, before entering the Middle Ages, Western philosophy was highly developed, and whether Both natural philosophy and metaphysics have a strong rational spirit, which is contrary to the belief in the existence of God and the rejection of rationality in Christian philosophy. Therefore, when Christianity spread from Israel to the Greco-Roman world where philosophy was highly developed, first of all What it deals with is how to combine the Christian faith with the rational spirit pushed to a very high degree by Plato and Aristotle, which is the most prominent feature of medieval Christian philosophy.
In the age of AI, how do we think about the place of people and their relationship to the world. In today's era of unrivaled science, artificial intelligence has surpassed people in many ways. How should we view people's position in the world and the meaning of their existence?
Chen Jiaying has been concerned about the relationship between science and philosophy for a long time. In this book, he discusses the two core concepts of perception and rational knowledge. Chen Jiaying said: "Of course, rational knowledge is a special endowment of human beings. But the value of human understanding is that it is always intertwined with perception. Animals have perception but irrational knowledge. The appropriate conclusion seems to be that human beings not only perceive, but also understand, not only understand. If there is no sense, then it is not Human beings have a speciality, and that is the speciality of AI. Understanding with perception, knowing with perception, fundamentally speaking, is to understand the world in connection with understanding yourself, and understand yourself in connection with the world. To put it more simply, It’s just living to understand.”
Perception and understanding are indeed the most central pair of concepts in philosophy. Almost all philosophers' thinking involves "knowledge", and often divides it into two relative concepts, such as perceptual knowledge and rational knowledge, medieval divine revelation and nature, Russell's kinship and descriptive knowledge, Bergson's knowledge. Inner knowledge and outer knowledge, as well as the knowledge of seeing and hearing and the knowledge of virtue in the Chinese ideological tradition, and so on.
Perception and understanding seem to be well differentiated. Some things we rely on perception, such as the taste of pears and the aroma of coffee; some things we rely on understanding, like ultraviolet rays, but more often, perception and understanding are mixed together, and they are Under what circumstances can it be transformed and under which circumstances it cannot be transformed, and what are the boundary conditions for transformation, these are all issues worth discussing.
"Perception, Reason, Self-Cognition" is not a difficult philosophical essay, nor is it a research work, it is more like an answer to the puzzling philosophical dilemmas we encounter in our lives. It does not teach Give us a theory to memorize, it guides us how to think. To reinforce this, the author has designed a question-and-answer session at the end of each chapter.
For example, at the end of the article "Touch / Body Perception" in Chapter 2, the question is: "When we touch an ice cube, we will say that the ice cube is cold, but we will not say that it is hard. At this time, the temperature Compared with texture, it will occupy our consciousness. However, when we touch a stone, we will say that the stone is hard without describing its temperature. At this time, texture will occupy our consciousness compared with temperature. Consciousness. So when we touch a thing, why does the nature of the thing have a priority and occupy our consciousness?
Chen Jiaying replied: "I'm not sure that your feeling must be like this, but I can think of it this way. Ice looks hard, but you can't see it's cold. Your sense of touch complements your vision. To feel its temperature, because its temperature is mostly normal temperature, if the stone is hot, you will feel its temperature first. Which feeling occupies your consciousness, it seems to depend on the situation, you have to touch a stone In a fight, whether the rock is hard or not is the most important thing, it doesn’t matter whether the rock is cool or hot. In another context, whether the rock is cool or hot may be the focus of your attention.”
This is a new work on comparative politics by scholar Liu Yu. The book focuses on the two core dimensions of comparative politics—political transformation and national capacity, and includes different countries, regions, ancient and modern into them for comparison. The book includes an analysis of developed countries such as the United States, Britain, Germany, and France, as well as an introduction to developing countries such as South Africa, India, Mexico, Thailand, Chile, and Iraq.
Liu Yu believes that "comparison" in comparative politics is not so much a specific research method as it is a research perspective. When you treat the political reality you face as one of ten thousand possibilities, you gain a "comparative perspective." From this, the perspective of comparison is essentially a kind of overlooking and detaching from the "here and now", coming to the "air" of diversity, overlooking a faint forest, which reminds you that what you see is only phenomena, and phenomena are not necessarily the truth.
In the book, Liu Yu looks at politics from outside politics. "Politics in social structure" "Politics in economy" "Politics in history" "Politics in geography" "Politics in culture". By analyzing the transformation of South Africa, the choice of economic policies in Chile, the social movements in the United States, and the changes in South Korea's ideas, readers can understand the various ways in which politics creates possibilities, understand the balance between social and political development, political choices and political possibility of action.
In the preface, Liu Yu said: "Talking about politics is an extremely difficult thing, especially in an era of political polarization. Few things can arouse fanatical love and hate like politics and make strangers Be a fellow, make a friend an enemy. Reading the history of the French Revolution, I was amazed to find that Robespierre was once an opponent of the death penalty, but within a few years his Jacobin regime became a symbol of the guillotine. Reading the history of the Nazis, I saw that the Nazis claimed that the invention of the gas chambers actually made death more 'humane' - such cruelty appeared in the name of 'humanity'. I also read Han Feizi's famous quote, ' The sovereign is also for the people, and if there is difficulty, he will die, and Anping will do his best, and he calls this 'the master'. It seems that politics is the distortion field of all relationships, all morals, and all concepts; it seems that, Politics always brings dislocation, and efforts to understand politics always lead to misunderstandings.” But we must understand politics, and only by bringing all kinds of countries and politics into our field of vision and establishing a frame of reference that is as rich and complete as possible can we better A good understanding of reality.
In the book "The Art of Possibility", Liu Yu often enters into a grand discussion with a small entry point, such as "What is a country? From the drug cartels in Mexico", "Revolution in Korean Films: The Water Level of Concepts" Changes with Institutions” “Is Evil Really Mediocre? Mob Archaeology”…
In Political Philosophy, Jonathan Wolfe says that political philosophy need only answer two questions: "Who gets what?" and "Who has the final say?" "The latter concerns the question of "legitimacy".
The main work of Zhou Lian's "Legitimacy Foundation of Modern Politics" is to redefine the difference between legitimacy and its related concepts, such as justification, legality, political obligation and political responsibility, in order to clarify the role of "political legitimacy" in contemporary politics. position on the map of philosophical concepts and provide readers with theoretical analytical tools for understanding the state, power, political obligations, and political responsibilities.
"What makes power or force morally right" is a question that has been asked in political philosophy for more than 2,000 years. Focusing on the discussion domain of modern politics, Zhou Lian combined the viewpoints of Hannah Arendt, John Simmons, Habermas and Rawls to demonstrate.
Zhou Lian believes that in terms of conceptual composition, political legitimacy has its objective aspect on the one hand, that is, it must conform to a certain norm or even objectivity, and on the other hand, its subjective aspect, that is, the expression of the subject's subjective will; In terms of theoretical effect, political legitimacy makes the ruler have the right to rule on the one hand, and the ruled person has the obligation to obey on the other hand. There are many possible combinations of these four factors in different historical stages and different political and cultural backgrounds, but no matter what form of legitimacy as a concept takes, political legitimacy is conceptually related to these four factors—the objective of legitimacy Orientation and subjectivity, as well as the right to rule and political duty—there is a certain structural relationship. "As a result, starting from these four factors will be a suitable breakthrough to study political legitimacy."
Zhou Lian also spends the most time in the book distinguishing the conceptual difference between political legitimacy and justification. The mainstream view of political philosophy holds that the so-called political justification is the moral justification of political power, so most scholars tend to equate all the moral justification of political power with the work of justification. Zhou Lian believes that legitimacy is a "retrospective" concept, which focuses on the source and genealogy of power, that is, to evaluate power from the "approach of occurrence"; and justification as a "forward-looking" concept , which focuses on the utility of power and the purpose achieved, that is, to evaluate power from the "approach of purpose", and establishes two approaches for moral evaluation of the state.
Starting from the distinction between political legitimacy and justification, Zhou Lian draws a conceptual map between political obligations and political responsibilities: state legitimacy and citizens' political obligations are conceptually related, while state justification is Associated with the political responsibility of citizens.
Zhao Lin pointed out in Lectures on the History of Western Philosophy that when people are generally in a state of vigorous development and struggle, philosophy is a cumbersome cultural luxury. Only when we are in a state of peace does philosophy become a rigid need to relieve helplessness and boredom and give people spiritual comfort. The epidemic has pressed the pause button on life, and the hustle and bustle of material things has calmed down. Perhaps we have never needed spiritual life and philosophy as much as we do now.
We recommend these philosophy books recently published by the Utopia: "Starting from Surprise: The First Lesson of Philosophy for Teenagers" aims to stimulate the public's interest in philosophy. Scenarios, connect daily life with philosophy; Lectures on the History of Western Philosophy are lectures for the general philosophy course taught by Zhao Lin at the university. In a thick volume, it talks about the dazzling ancient Greek philosophy to Hegel. , readers need some patience to dive into it, so that the unfamiliar names of philosophers become familiar, train their philosophical thinking and critical spirit, and also experience a kind of pleasure in acquiring knowledge; Chen Jiaying 's "Perception, Reason, Self-cognition" discusses The pair of concepts of perception and understanding, but spends more pen and ink to guide readers to construct themselves in continuous speculation.
In the fierce battle between Russia and Ukraine, let us turn our attention to the distance. Liu Yu's "The Art of Possibility: 30 Lectures on Comparative Politics" analyzes more than a dozen countries, showing various ways of political creation of possibility, in order to better analyze and compare. A good understanding of the present; also a political science work, Zhou Lian's "Legitimacy Foundation of Modern Politics" redefines political legitimacy and justification and draws a conceptual map between political obligations and political responsibilities.
"Start with Surprise: Philosophy Lessons for Teenagers": Proving that "Philosophy Works"In an era with too much emphasis on biology, physics, and science, it seems that it is not easy to prove that "philosophy is effective". When people know themselves, they always cite biological understanding. For example, an inexplicable crush of curiosity is It's not dopamine that is at work. When you feel bad luck, you want to calculate the astrolabe to see if Mercury is retrograde. When you are not sure about things, you always want to ask for big data. People's lives and fortunes seem to have become something that can be calculated.
So when does philosophy come into play? The first is about "existence", about people's fundamental, profound and huge questions, such as people's spirit and morality, people's will and beauty, people's rights and freedoms, people's values and ideals. Philosophy is answering these questions. questions, and develop in speculation and clarification from generation to generation. Rather than stop at a certain concept, the scholars in the book try to sort out a path for the evolution of philosophical concepts. In the chapter "Self, Existence, and Dwelling", Leng Xin starts from Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" and believes that: Descartes painted a picture of a "thinker" who is always doubting (and confirming by doubt), apprehending, affirming and denying, willing or unwilling, imagining and feeling, the long thinker The image of the symbol symbolizes the entire Western mindset - with strong subjectivity and immanence, and showing absolute individualism.
In the 20th century, people found that the concept of "I think" was too intrinsic and absolute, so Heidegger's "existence" theory became more effective. Heidegger believed that the essence of human beings is determined by human existence. , we have emotions, have a relationship with the world, and are determined by the world because of our "existence". The existence of modern man is as suggested in Pound's poem "these faces in the crowd appear ghostly, the petals blossom on the wet black branches", a vulgar, average idea of the existential "i am the They" makes People indulge in daily life, and then move towards a natural indifference and nothingness.
The French philosopher Lenavis, who suffered the devastation of World War II, put forward the concept of "residence". We are familiar with the expression "man is born...". "Man is born" needs a suffix. According to Lenavis, this suffix is the dwelling place of human body and mind. The dwelling place of human being can be home, or it can be Where it exists, it can also be an ideal. Levinas' "residence" is also what the Chinese call "a place to live and live", and the concept of residence has also evolved a concept of enjoyment, that is, "this place of peace is my hometown", a person's "residence" does not have to be very important, It may be a cup of coffee every morning, a good meal, life has its desolation and tragedy, but people are born with a place to live. From these philosophical concepts, we understand the indifference of human beings, and we also feel peaceful for the existence of "abode".
The situations we encounter in our lives are ever-changing, but "every change is inseparable from its sect". Philosophy is the sect hidden behind the phenomenon. Mastering the key of philosophy will give you a broader perspective that is separated from the phenomenon. For example, in the seventh lecture of the book "Mind Problems: From Robots and Zombies", we will find that all robots and zombies actually discuss the issues of "mind" and "body", an important branch of contemporary philosophy - philosophy of mind is to discuss this issue.
Aside from this big problem that must be solved, we are always curious about the world and may ask "why" at any moment, and philosophy is the answer to these questions. As Liu Qing, one of the authors of the book, said: "Humans want to know what, why, and how everything we face... This is a concern for our existence, and this concern is innate. But at the same time, it can also be developed into a conscious awareness of questioning. In daily life, these curiosity may be forgotten and marginalized, but it will never be extinguished.”
Lectures on the History of Western Philosophy
Lectures on the History of Western Philosophy: Entering the Torrent of Philosophy History"Lectures on the History of Western Philosophy" is a transcript of the general philosophy courses taught by Zhao Lin at Wuhan University and Southeast University. Zhao Lin's history of Western philosophy begins with ancient Greek philosophy and follows the clues of the history of thought all the way down to Hegel's philosophy.
In the narrative, Zhao Lin introduces the main propositions of each philosopher in sections and sections, and also mixes some doubts and speculations. Think matter is inherently in motion? And how did the first, the first matter move? Why did Newton bring out a God in his cosmology? This point, which is not expressed at the beginning, is answered ten chapters later with Kant's "Nebula Hypothesis".
Reading a long history of philosophy is like running down a river. The further downstream you go, the harder it is to tell which rivers are holding up and reading to this place. If you want to make a clear line, you need to go back to the upstream from time to time to carefully identify it. The first lecture of Lectures on the History of Western Philosophy talks about what philosophy is and the function of philosophy. Zhao Lin defines "philosophy as a skeptical spirit and critical consciousness that grows and develops in an endless process of self-denial". In the next two to six lectures on Greek philosophy, it is fully reflected. Standing at the beginning of philosophy, ancient Greek philosophy embodies a kind of living wisdom. Although there is no lack of childishness in it, philosophers They are like a wave of waves, and the latecomers are carefully flooding on, and even drowning their predecessors, and finally form a fierce symphony of forward and backward.
Zhao Lin mentioned that the thinking of early philosophers involved almost all the profound issues that human thinking can focus on. Moreover, the philosophical viewpoints of the Greek philosophers are fresh and accessible, showing the free mind's thinking and concern for the universe and life. Philosophy is not the flavor of their life, but the way of life and their supreme pursuit. As a reading habit, Zhao Lin focuses a lot of his writing on the personality and family background of the philosopher himself. Understanding these contents will also help to understand and remember his philosophical propositions. For example, Heraclitus is a royal family and can inherit the throne, which makes him have a strong sense of elitism, but he is cynical by nature and actively chooses a life of isolation, so his thoughts are obscure and mysterious; and Democritus In his later years, he blinded himself in order to immerse himself in philosophy more intently.
Zhao Lin also believes: "From ancient Greek philosophy to Hegelian philosophy in the 19th century, they all have a fixed complex - to ask what is the essential thing behind the phenomenon of things. After Hegel, especially Western philosophers in the 20th century moved towards phenomenology and existentialism, and stopped asking about the essence.” “History of Western philosophy and modern Western philosophy have always been two independent courses. . . . I have no interest in modern philosophy, because modern Philosophy has become more and more a skill of rigid norms, rather than profound wisdom. Since Minerva's owl was released by Hegel, the twilight of philosophy has been followed by a long night of spirituality ."
Zhao Lin tried his best to sort out a concise clue in the complicated history of philosophy, focusing on the most important viewpoints of the most important philosophers.
Taking the second lecture "Greek Natural Philosophy (Ancient Greek Philosophy of Materialism)" as an example, the author focuses on presenting the conjectures put forward by various factions on the nature of the world. The earliest Thales of Miletus creatively proposed that "the origin of all things is water", and his student Anaximander put forward a more explanatory "the origin of the world is Apelang (amorphous)", which leads to " "Apelang" is the first real philosophical concept in the history of Western philosophy focusing on "nothing"; Anaximenes, the third philosopher of the Miletus school, proposed that the origin of the world is a Although it is amorphous, it has inner meaning - Qi. Heraclitus, the representative of the Ephesian school of the same period, put forward the theory of the origin of fire, and put forward a more important theory about logos. Heraclitus believed that logos is a mysterious rule, a kind of Abstract scale. After him, Empedocles no longer stopped at a certain element, but put forward the "Four Roots Theory" (things arise from water, fire, earth, and air, and are formed by the two elements of "love" and "hate". This is the source of the construction theory of Greek natural philosophy; when Anaxagoras proposed the "seed theory", he first proposed a spiritual entity-Nus ( It is also translated as soul), Nus can cause all things in the world to come together, to develop to Democritus, the master of Greek natural philosophy, the "atomic theory" was put forward, he put a kind of abstraction of thought rather than a kind of Concrete things are the source of all things.
In Lecture 7, "Medieval Christian Philosophy", when the author talks about patristic philosophy and scholastic philosophy, he focuses on the relationship between reason and faith. As introduced in the previous lectures, before entering the Middle Ages, Western philosophy was highly developed, and whether Both natural philosophy and metaphysics have a strong rational spirit, which is contrary to the belief in the existence of God and the rejection of rationality in Christian philosophy. Therefore, when Christianity spread from Israel to the Greco-Roman world where philosophy was highly developed, first of all What it deals with is how to combine the Christian faith with the rational spirit pushed to a very high degree by Plato and Aristotle, which is the most prominent feature of medieval Christian philosophy.
"Perception, Reason, Self-Cognition"
"Perception, Reason, Self-Cognition": Guided ThinkingIn the age of AI, how do we think about the place of people and their relationship to the world. In today's era of unrivaled science, artificial intelligence has surpassed people in many ways. How should we view people's position in the world and the meaning of their existence?
Chen Jiaying has been concerned about the relationship between science and philosophy for a long time. In this book, he discusses the two core concepts of perception and rational knowledge. Chen Jiaying said: "Of course, rational knowledge is a special endowment of human beings. But the value of human understanding is that it is always intertwined with perception. Animals have perception but irrational knowledge. The appropriate conclusion seems to be that human beings not only perceive, but also understand, not only understand. If there is no sense, then it is not Human beings have a speciality, and that is the speciality of AI. Understanding with perception, knowing with perception, fundamentally speaking, is to understand the world in connection with understanding yourself, and understand yourself in connection with the world. To put it more simply, It’s just living to understand.”
Perception and understanding are indeed the most central pair of concepts in philosophy. Almost all philosophers' thinking involves "knowledge", and often divides it into two relative concepts, such as perceptual knowledge and rational knowledge, medieval divine revelation and nature, Russell's kinship and descriptive knowledge, Bergson's knowledge. Inner knowledge and outer knowledge, as well as the knowledge of seeing and hearing and the knowledge of virtue in the Chinese ideological tradition, and so on.
Perception and understanding seem to be well differentiated. Some things we rely on perception, such as the taste of pears and the aroma of coffee; some things we rely on understanding, like ultraviolet rays, but more often, perception and understanding are mixed together, and they are Under what circumstances can it be transformed and under which circumstances it cannot be transformed, and what are the boundary conditions for transformation, these are all issues worth discussing.
"Perception, Reason, Self-Cognition" is not a difficult philosophical essay, nor is it a research work, it is more like an answer to the puzzling philosophical dilemmas we encounter in our lives. It does not teach Give us a theory to memorize, it guides us how to think. To reinforce this, the author has designed a question-and-answer session at the end of each chapter.
For example, at the end of the article "Touch / Body Perception" in Chapter 2, the question is: "When we touch an ice cube, we will say that the ice cube is cold, but we will not say that it is hard. At this time, the temperature Compared with texture, it will occupy our consciousness. However, when we touch a stone, we will say that the stone is hard without describing its temperature. At this time, texture will occupy our consciousness compared with temperature. Consciousness. So when we touch a thing, why does the nature of the thing have a priority and occupy our consciousness?
Chen Jiaying replied: "I'm not sure that your feeling must be like this, but I can think of it this way. Ice looks hard, but you can't see it's cold. Your sense of touch complements your vision. To feel its temperature, because its temperature is mostly normal temperature, if the stone is hot, you will feel its temperature first. Which feeling occupies your consciousness, it seems to depend on the situation, you have to touch a stone In a fight, whether the rock is hard or not is the most important thing, it doesn’t matter whether the rock is cool or hot. In another context, whether the rock is cool or hot may be the focus of your attention.”
The Art of Possibility: 30 Lectures in Comparative Politics
The Art of Possibility: 30 Lectures in Comparative Politics: Understanding Politics in a Larger Frame of ReferenceThis is a new work on comparative politics by scholar Liu Yu. The book focuses on the two core dimensions of comparative politics—political transformation and national capacity, and includes different countries, regions, ancient and modern into them for comparison. The book includes an analysis of developed countries such as the United States, Britain, Germany, and France, as well as an introduction to developing countries such as South Africa, India, Mexico, Thailand, Chile, and Iraq.
Liu Yu believes that "comparison" in comparative politics is not so much a specific research method as it is a research perspective. When you treat the political reality you face as one of ten thousand possibilities, you gain a "comparative perspective." From this, the perspective of comparison is essentially a kind of overlooking and detaching from the "here and now", coming to the "air" of diversity, overlooking a faint forest, which reminds you that what you see is only phenomena, and phenomena are not necessarily the truth.
In the book, Liu Yu looks at politics from outside politics. "Politics in social structure" "Politics in economy" "Politics in history" "Politics in geography" "Politics in culture". By analyzing the transformation of South Africa, the choice of economic policies in Chile, the social movements in the United States, and the changes in South Korea's ideas, readers can understand the various ways in which politics creates possibilities, understand the balance between social and political development, political choices and political possibility of action.
In the preface, Liu Yu said: "Talking about politics is an extremely difficult thing, especially in an era of political polarization. Few things can arouse fanatical love and hate like politics and make strangers Be a fellow, make a friend an enemy. Reading the history of the French Revolution, I was amazed to find that Robespierre was once an opponent of the death penalty, but within a few years his Jacobin regime became a symbol of the guillotine. Reading the history of the Nazis, I saw that the Nazis claimed that the invention of the gas chambers actually made death more 'humane' - such cruelty appeared in the name of 'humanity'. I also read Han Feizi's famous quote, ' The sovereign is also for the people, and if there is difficulty, he will die, and Anping will do his best, and he calls this 'the master'. It seems that politics is the distortion field of all relationships, all morals, and all concepts; it seems that, Politics always brings dislocation, and efforts to understand politics always lead to misunderstandings.” But we must understand politics, and only by bringing all kinds of countries and politics into our field of vision and establishing a frame of reference that is as rich and complete as possible can we better A good understanding of reality.
In the book "The Art of Possibility", Liu Yu often enters into a grand discussion with a small entry point, such as "What is a country? From the drug cartels in Mexico", "Revolution in Korean Films: The Water Level of Concepts" Changes with Institutions” “Is Evil Really Mediocre? Mob Archaeology”…
"The Legitimate Basis of Modern Politics"
The Legitimacy Foundations of Modern Politics: Redefining Legitimacy and JustificationIn Political Philosophy, Jonathan Wolfe says that political philosophy need only answer two questions: "Who gets what?" and "Who has the final say?" "The latter concerns the question of "legitimacy".
The main work of Zhou Lian's "Legitimacy Foundation of Modern Politics" is to redefine the difference between legitimacy and its related concepts, such as justification, legality, political obligation and political responsibility, in order to clarify the role of "political legitimacy" in contemporary politics. position on the map of philosophical concepts and provide readers with theoretical analytical tools for understanding the state, power, political obligations, and political responsibilities.
"What makes power or force morally right" is a question that has been asked in political philosophy for more than 2,000 years. Focusing on the discussion domain of modern politics, Zhou Lian combined the viewpoints of Hannah Arendt, John Simmons, Habermas and Rawls to demonstrate.
Zhou Lian believes that in terms of conceptual composition, political legitimacy has its objective aspect on the one hand, that is, it must conform to a certain norm or even objectivity, and on the other hand, its subjective aspect, that is, the expression of the subject's subjective will; In terms of theoretical effect, political legitimacy makes the ruler have the right to rule on the one hand, and the ruled person has the obligation to obey on the other hand. There are many possible combinations of these four factors in different historical stages and different political and cultural backgrounds, but no matter what form of legitimacy as a concept takes, political legitimacy is conceptually related to these four factors—the objective of legitimacy Orientation and subjectivity, as well as the right to rule and political duty—there is a certain structural relationship. "As a result, starting from these four factors will be a suitable breakthrough to study political legitimacy."
Zhou Lian also spends the most time in the book distinguishing the conceptual difference between political legitimacy and justification. The mainstream view of political philosophy holds that the so-called political justification is the moral justification of political power, so most scholars tend to equate all the moral justification of political power with the work of justification. Zhou Lian believes that legitimacy is a "retrospective" concept, which focuses on the source and genealogy of power, that is, to evaluate power from the "approach of occurrence"; and justification as a "forward-looking" concept , which focuses on the utility of power and the purpose achieved, that is, to evaluate power from the "approach of purpose", and establishes two approaches for moral evaluation of the state.
Starting from the distinction between political legitimacy and justification, Zhou Lian draws a conceptual map between political obligations and political responsibilities: state legitimacy and citizens' political obligations are conceptually related, while state justification is Associated with the political responsibility of citizens.
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