1. Philosophy is the god in the temple
Everyone knows that the reason why a "temple" is a temple is because there is a "god" worshiped in the temple; if there is no "god" in the temple, "God", then it does not qualify as a "temple". It was borrowing from the relationship between "temple" and "god" that Hegel said: "A cultured nation without philosophy is like a temple that is lavishly decorated in other aspects, but does not have the holy God. ”
According to Hegel’s metaphor, “the god in the temple” is the “aura” that makes the “temple” a temple, and philosophy is the “cultural palace” and “spiritual home” of mankind. It has become the "embrace" of a cultural palace and spiritual home. That is to say, philosophy, like the sunshine that shines on the earth, illuminates human life; if philosophy is lost, human life will become eclipsed. For this reason, Hegel said: "All the real, great and sacred things in life are real, great and sacred because of ideas." He also said: "Man should respect himself and regard himself as worthy of The most noble thing in the world."
It can be seen that Hegel regards "philosophy" as the pursuit of the "sublime" and regards the "idea" of philosophy as the existence of the "sublime". Therefore, in Hegel, "the sublime" is the "idea"; "the idea" is the "sublime"; the pursuit of the "sublime" is the identification of the "idea", and the identification of the "idea" is Being with the "sublime".
It is not difficult to understand why Hegel regarded philosophy as the "self-movement" and "self-knowledge" of "ideas" (i.e., "absolute spirit"), and regarded people's learning of philosophy as It is a "great process that makes people sublime." It is not difficult to understand why Hegel compared philosophy to the "god in the temple" and believed that philosophy is the "universal light" that illuminates human life.
In Hegel’s view, human beings should pursue noble things and live a noble life. And this "noble thing" is the "reason" that regulates human life. Such "rationality" is not personal rationality, but a kind of "universal rationality"; this "universal rationality" requires a special cultural form, which is philosophy.
Hegel’s understanding of philosophy is the most concentrated expression of the entire traditional philosophy’s understanding of philosophy.
Contemporary American philosopher Richard Rorty said: "Since the Greek times, Western thinkers have been seeking a unified set of ideas that can be used to justify or criticize individual behavior and Life, as well as social customs and institutions, can also provide people with a framework for personal moral thought and social and political thinking, and 'philosophy' is the name given by the Greeks to such a set of concepts that reflects the structure of reality." From this we can see. Hegel, who has been a lifelong companion of Greek culture, compared philosophy to the "god in the temple", which essentially expresses people's traditional understanding of philosophy in the most concentrated and clear way: that is, philosophy illuminates human life and illuminates human life. Thereby "the sun shines" that "ennobles mankind."
2. Philosophy is a battlefield for fighting
Reading the history of philosophy, it is not difficult to find a strange phenomenon: every philosopher thinks he has found the "god in the temple". That is to say, they think that they have discovered the true meaning of philosophy; while other philosophers criticize and refute this understanding of philosophy, and each declare that the philosophy they understand is the only true philosophy; so philosophers always criticize each other, and philosophy The history of China is the history of philosophers attacking each other, that is, the history of philosophy's self-criticism.
Modern German philosopher Schlick once gave a rather wonderful description of this. He said: "All the great philosophers believe that with the establishment of their own systems, a new era of thought has arrived, or at least that they have discovered the ultimate truth. Without this belief, philosophers can hardly achieve anything. Things. It was with this belief, for example, when Descartes introduced the method that makes him often called the 'Father of Modern Philosophy'; and the same was true when Spinoza tried to introduce mathematical methods into philosophy; Even Kant was no exception, and in the preface to his greatest work he declared: From now on philosophy can work with a reliability that has hitherto been reserved for science.
They all firmly believed that they had the ability to end the confusion of philosophy, to open up something completely new, to usher in a new epoch. "It is in response to this situation that Schlick pointed out insightfully that the characteristic of the philosophical enterprise is that it is always forced to start over at the starting point. It never takes anything for granted. It feels that it is not responsible for any philosophical problem. Every answer is not certain or sufficiently certain. It feels that to solve this problem we must start from scratch.
It is based on the "interaction between various philosophies and divergent ideas in the history of philosophy." Hegel compared the history of philosophy to a "battlefield of fighting". He believed that because of "this undeniable fact", the entire history of philosophy has become a The battlefield is littered with the bones of the dead. It is a kingdom of the dead, a kingdom filled not only with physically dead individuals but also with overthrown and spiritually dead systems in which a person has been killed. The other, of course, happens that a new philosophy emerges which asserts the worthlessness of all other philosophies. Because: With it, all previous philosophies were not only refuted, but their shortcomings were also corrected, and the correct philosophy was finally discovered. But based on many previous experiences, it is enough to show that there is something else in the New Testament. Some words may equally be said of this philosophy
The apostle Peter said to Ananias: “Behold! The feet of the one who will carry you out are already standing at the door. "And behold, the philosophy that refutes you and replaces you will not last long, just as it will not last long with other philosophies."
In this discussion, Haig He first acknowledged the fact that the history of philosophy is full of mutual criticism of philosophical ideas, and this mutual criticism will never end. However, Hegel believed that if the history of philosophy is simply regarded as the history of "one killing the other and burying the other", the history of philosophy will lose the meaning of "development". In Hegel's view, philosophical self-criticism is essentially determined by the contemporary nature of philosophy. He said: "It is as foolish to imagine that a philosophy can transcend its time as it is to imagine that an individual can jump out of his time and out of the house of death. If its theory does transcend the times and build a society as it should be The world, then this kind of world does exist, but this world only exists in his private opinion, which is an unstable element in which people can imagine anything at will." Precisely because philosophy is "in thought. "The era grasped", the philosophy that expresses the new era must gain the dominant position of philosophy through criticism of the philosophy that expresses the old era, thus forming a "fighting battlefield" in the history of philosophy.
3. Philosophy is buds, flowers and fruits
Hegel said: "When the flowers bloom and the buds disappear, people will say that the buds are denied by the flowers; similarly, When it comes to fruiting, the flower is interpreted as a false form of existence of the plant, while the fruit comes out as the true form of the plant. These forms are not only different from each other, but also mutually exclusive and incompatible. Their fluidity makes them links of an organic unity, in which they not only do not conflict with each other, but are equally necessary and important to each other, and it is this same necessity that constitutes the life of the whole.”
This is a beautiful metaphor. The flower buds give birth to the flowers, and the flowers give birth to the fruits; but the blooming of the flowers is the denial of the flower buds, and the production of the fruits is the denial of the flowers. From this point of view, this process of negation is not just in a new form and content. Is prior existence confirmed? If you look at the history of philosophy in this way, it will no longer be a battlefield "filled with dead men's bones", no longer a process of futile denial and nothing gained, but precisely a process of "sublation" and a process of bearing fruits. . The history of philosophy understood in this way is the history of the development of philosophy.
Philosophical reflection requires "a profound spiritual and emotional seriousness", it needs to be detached from urgent interests and practical utility, and it needs to eliminate "empty and shallow opinions". This is the deep meaning of Hegel's metaphor of philosophy as "an owl taking flight at dusk."
5. Philosophy is "digestion and physiology"
Hegel once wrote the great "Logic" in the history of philosophy. What is so "wonderful" about logic? ? People often think that logic "teaches people to think", and there seems to be nothing wrong with this idea or statement. However, if we compare the relationship between "digestion" and "physiology" to the relationship between "thinking" and "logic", people will find that it is extremely absurd and misleading to regard logic as "teaching people to think".
Everyone knows that people do not need to study physiology or digestion to learn natural instincts such as chewing, swallowing, absorption, and excretion. On the contrary, if anyone uses physiology or digestion to learn eating or excretion, That's the most ridiculous thing in the world. Obviously, physiology is not about digestion. Similarly, human "thinking" is not "taught" by logic.
According to Hegel's understanding, logic is to make people "conscious of the nature of thinking", that is, to be conscious of the logic of thinking movements. People think by the nature of their thinking, but they cannot spontaneously grasp the logic of thinking movements. This is just like people rely on their natural ability to digest, but people cannot spontaneously master the laws of digestive movements.
The logic of thinking movement is the basis for human beings to understand all things and form all knowledge. For this reason, Hegel regarded his philosophy as the logic of truth and called his most important philosophical work the Logic. This kind of logic about truth does not "teach people to think", but shows the conceptual movement process of the development of human thought. By studying the logic of thought movements, people can become aware of the dialectical nature of conceptual movements and thus achieve understanding of truth.
6. Philosophy is "the same maxim"
People often use maxims to explain the meaning of life in their lives. Hegel believes that the same maxim has fundamentally different meanings when uttered in the mouth of a weather-beaten and tortured old man, and in the mouth of an innocent, lovely, unacquainted child, and the effect obtained is also the same. The difference is huge. Hegel also specifically mentioned that although children can also speak the religious truths spoken by the old man, for the old man, these religious truths contain the meaning of his entire life. Even this child understands the content of religion, but for him, outside of this religious truth, he has not yet understood and experienced life and the entire world.
Hegel's statement about "the same maxim" reminds us of a poem by Xin Qiji. In the poem "Picking Mulberry Seeds", Xin Qiji wrote: "The young man didn't know the feeling of sorrow, so he fell in love with the upper floor, fell in love with the higher floor, and forced himself to talk about sorrow in order to compose new poems. Now that he knows the taste of sorrow, he still wants to talk about it, but he still wants to talk about it. "Hugh, but it's cool in autumn!" This is probably the different feelings and expressions of "sorrow" between the elderly and children.
Hegel’s metaphor tells people that philosophy is not only a kind of reason that is carefully considered and discerned, but also a kind of real emotion. In each person’s life, its meaning is different due to different life experiences. Not all the same. Life is not only the movement and development of a series of concepts, but also contains extremely profound life experiences. Therefore, to truly enter into philosophical thinking, one must have the experience, understanding, taste, chewing and even epiphany or gradual enlightenment advocated by traditional Chinese philosophy. Philosophy is not ready-made knowledge, nor is it a rigid concept, nor is it a rigid dogma. Learning philosophy cannot be done "mechanically", cannot be "attacked", and cannot be done "quickly". Because philosophy is a process of edification, experience, and edification. It is a process of people cultivating themselves into adults, not a "lifelong event" for "a certain kind of person" (Feng Youlan's words).
7. Philosophy is like animals listening to music
Philosophy is not ready-made knowledge. If you accept and apply philosophy as ready-made knowledge, although you can use certain philosophical concepts, you will never know what philosophy is, and therefore you will not be able to truly enter into philosophical thinking.
This is like "some animals who hear all the tones in music, but the consistency and harmony of these tones do not pass through their minds.
Hegel's last metaphor It may be too harsh, but it sharply and profoundly reveals the difficulty of forming philosophical wisdom. Hegel said: "People often take philosophy as a subject too lightly. Although they have never devoted themselves to philosophy, they can talk about it. Philosophy, seems to be very expert. They are not fully prepared for the common sense of philosophy, but they do not hesitate to come out to discuss philosophy and criticize philosophy, especially when they are moved by religious emotions. They admit that in order to know other sciences, they must first conduct specialized research, and they must first have specialized knowledge of the subject before they are qualified to make judgments. This is just like everyone admits that in order to make a pair of shoes, one must have the skills of a shoemaker. Although everyone has his own foot as a model and has the innate ability to learn shoemaking, without learning, he cannot Dare to make reckless things. Only for philosophy, everyone feels that there is no need to research, study and work hard, but they talk about philosophy without shame. "This is just like animals listening to music. They can hear "all the tones in the music", but they cannot hear the "consistency and harmony" of these tones.
8. Humility against truth and people with lazy minds
Another attitude towards philosophy is the "humility against truth" criticized by Hegel. Hegel gave an example, if someone asks such a question: "Truth." What is it? "This means that everything is not the same, and nothing is meaningful. And this attitude of treating everything as illusion can only leave his own "subjective illusion" .
In this regard, Hegel very vividly criticized another attitude towards philosophy, that is, the attitude of "people with lazy minds": "They think that when thinking goes beyond the scope of daily representation, will walk into the devil's cave; it is as if they let themselves float on the ocean of thoughts, tossed here and there by the waves of thoughts themselves, and finally return to the shore of this impermanent world, just as indifferent as when they first left this shore. , gained nothing. ”