The essence of philosophy: the study of philosophy history; The Relationship between Hegel's Philosophy and Philosophy History
In the introduction of Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel once put forward a famous proposition: "The history of philosophy itself should be philosophical". Since then, the proposition that "the history of philosophy is philosophy" has been widely read and even regarded as the standard of the study of the history of philosophy. Although many philosophers later pointed out that Hegel's proposition was entirely out of the need of his philosophical system, we should still grasp the history of philosophy from the perspective of understanding philosophy. This is still an important guiding principle for us to study the history of philosophy. Because this proposition has been discussed in detail in Hegel, the inverse proposition of this proposition has also been sought after by many philosophers. For a time, the statement that "philosophy is the history of philosophy" was regarded as an undeniable golden rule, and even some scholars regarded this statement as the only way to study philosophy. In fact, no matter how Hegel discusses "the history of philosophy is philosophy" and its inverse proposition, we can clearly see that Hegel's statement has a clear ideological premise. If these statements are regarded as a general understanding of the relationship between philosophy and philosophy history, and these ideological premises are not mentioned at all, then Hegel's thought itself is completely misunderstood, which directly leads to our misinterpretation of the relationship between philosophy and philosophy history. Here, I try to explain the true meaning of Hegel's proposition by revealing the ideological premise discussed by Hegel. Then, I will clarify the ideological relationship between philosophy and the history of philosophy from two aspects of logic and history, and finally put forward my general understanding of philosophical concepts.
The ideological premise of Hegel's exposition
In his opening speech in Lecture Notes on the History of Philosophy, Hegel clearly investigated the nature of the history of philosophy and strictly defined the concept of philosophy, thus clarifying his understanding of the development process of the history of philosophy. From his detailed exposition, we can clearly feel that Hegel's understanding of the essence of the history of philosophy comes entirely from his unique interpretation of philosophy, that is, he interprets philosophy as a rational activity to know the only truth. Hegel interpreted all external accidental historical facts in the history of philosophy as an inevitable process to reveal this truth. This shows that the history of philosophy can't be a history of accidental facts, but a history in which the only truth is constantly revealed with the help of these facts, and it is also a history in which philosophy develops itself. In this way, the history of philosophy itself can only be philosophical.
In Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel gave three arguments for the proposition that the history of philosophy is philosophy.
The first argument:
Major premise: philosophy is scientific, or philosophy is scientific;
Minor premise: the history of philosophy itself is scientific, because revealing the content of the history of philosophy belongs to the category of science;
Conclusion: The history of philosophy is essentially philosophy.
This argument shows the close relationship between philosophy and science, and the understanding of the nature of science constitutes the basic premise of this argument. We don't discuss what science is here, just need to understand Hegel's explanation of the proposition that philosophy is science. According to his explanation, science is an activity of understanding the essence and development law of things, while philosophy reflects the essence and development law of things with the most abstract concepts, so philosophy must belong to science. Whether Hegel's explanation of science is true or not, we can see from his thoughts that his understanding of the essence of philosophy and science is based on purpose and function, that is, the essence of philosophy and science is defined by the work to be done by philosophy and science. Not to mention whether such a provision meets our general requirements for definition, from the perspective of the relationship between philosophy and science, in fact, it has completely equated the two: according to this explanation, philosophy and science have completed the same work, and the difference is only the way to express truth, so philosophy is science. Only based on this ideological premise, it is logical to understand the history of philosophy as science, because the history of philosophy is the process of revealing truth. Therefore, the history of philosophy belongs to philosophy science.
The second argument:
Major premise: the starting point of the history of philosophy is the definition of the nature and scope of philosophy;
Minor premise: the definition of the nature and scope of philosophy certainly belongs to philosophy itself;
Conclusion: The history of philosophy certainly belongs to philosophy.
This argument seems reasonable, but the problems it contains are also obvious. The first is the presupposition of its major premise: the starting point of the history of philosophy is the stipulation of the nature and scope of philosophy. This presupposition is obviously different from our general understanding of the concept of philosophy history. Even if we can interpret the thought of a philosopher in the history of philosophy as the stipulation of the nature and scope of philosophy, we cannot deduce it from it. The work of the history of philosophy is to define the nature and scope of philosophy. Because the study of the history of philosophy, if it is an independent scientific study, obviously aims to reveal various philosophical theories and ideas put forward by philosophers in history, and analyze and judge the intrinsic value and universal significance of these theories and ideas from the perspective of future generations. This is not only the perspective of historical investigation, but also the choice of contemporary people. So history will be rewritten by future generations. However, no matter how history is described, it is clear to us that the object of this narrative itself is various philosophical theories and ideas put forward by philosophers in history, not philosophy itself. The so-called "philosophy itself" here refers to the object that philosophers talk about, not the content that philosophers talk about that object. In this sense, all kinds of philosophical theories and ideas that have appeared in history can be regarded as the object of talking about "philosophy itself". Only in this sense can we study the history of philosophy. Therefore, the starting point of the history of philosophy is not the stipulation of the nature and scope of philosophy, but the philosopher's narration of the stipulation of the nature and scope of philosophy. This is a historical narrative in time, not a logical ideological exposition. Secondly, the provisions on the nature and scope of philosophy really belong to philosophy itself, but because different philosophers have different provisions on it, we can't attribute all the provisions that have appeared in history to philosophy itself, otherwise it will violate Hegel's general understanding of philosophy, that is, there is only one philosophy. Because there is only one truth. If we regard the provisions on the nature and scope of philosophy in history as belonging to philosophy itself, then we will never get the philosophical vision expected by Hegel and never get a real understanding of philosophy itself.
The third argument:
Major premise: philosophy is rational knowledge;
Minor premise: its development history itself should be reasonable;
Conclusion: The history of philosophy itself should be philosophical.
This debate involves how to understand the relationship between "rationality" and "rationality". According to Hegel's own explanation, what is "rational" is of course "reasonable", but what is "reasonable" is not necessarily "rational". In other words, anything that is considered reasonable is not because it is "reasonable", but because we can give them some reasonable explanations. For example, this does not mean that the development of philosophy itself is carried out according to some pre-arranged procedure, but that we can explain the development history of philosophy according to some principle or principle, and regard this history as conforming to some pre-arranged procedure, which is exactly what Hegel tried to express. But from this point of view, Hegel just confuses the development of the history of philosophy with our explanatory reconstruction of the history of philosophy, or he just wants to replace the former with the latter. This shows that his philosophy is the highest stage of the development of human philosophy. According to this explanation, the rationality of Hegel's third argument here is greatly reduced: first, he replaced rationality with rationality, which violated the basic logical principle, that is, "stealing the concept"; Secondly, he replaced rational activity with rational explanation, which is another false argument based on expected reasons. The conclusion that "the history of philosophy itself should be philosophical" is untenable.
Of course, Hegel put forward this proposition to show that the whole history of philosophy is a historical process with inevitability and logical order, and the rationality of this process itself lies in that it is stipulated by ideas, so any contingency that enters the field of philosophy is eliminated; The inevitable development of concepts ensures that all schools of philosophy, as all links, are definitely preserved in philosophy, so that every philosophy is inevitable and no philosophy has ever been eliminated. In this way, Hegel will get such a view of philosophy history, although it is history, but it does not study the past, because the content of philosophy history is rational scientific achievements, and scientific achievements can not be eliminated; In the field of philosophy, achievement is truth, and truth is eternal. In this way, it can be concluded that the history of philosophy is philosophy.
Similarly, according to the same explanation, Hegel can also say that "philosophy is the history of philosophy". Because all philosophy is a historical process to explain the inevitability of absolute spiritual development, although each philosophy itself contains various special principles, these principles themselves require higher principles because of their own limitations, making them a necessary link in the development of thought itself; In Hegel's view, it is these different philosophies' constant questioning of the highest principle that constitutes the philosophical thought we understand today. Therefore, philosophy itself is a historical process in which philosophers of different times constantly show absolute spirit in their own unique way, and this is the truth that the history of philosophy can show us.
It can be seen that whether it is said that "the history of philosophy should be philosophical" or "philosophy is the history of philosophy", Hegel's exposition has a clear ideological premise, that is, the history of philosophy is understood as the history of the development of absolute ideas, and philosophy itself is the inevitable explanation of this history. Therefore, in Hegel's philosophical system, we can fully understand the true meaning of these propositions he said. However, if we leave Hegel's philosophy and talk about the relationship between philosophy history and philosophy in a more general sense, especially trying to emphasize that philosophy itself can only be understood in the sense of philosophy history, then we must clarify our understanding of "philosophy history" and "philosophy" and their relationship.
Second, the ideological relationship between the history of philosophy and philosophy
If we temporarily accept that the history of Hegel's philosophy is a philosophical proposition, then does the inverse proposition of this proposition hold? Logically speaking, agreeing with the proposition that "the history of philosophy is philosophy" does not mean that its inverse proposition "philosophy is the history of philosophy" is established, because the two concepts involved in these two propositions have different functions in different positions in the proposition. In this proposition, "history of philosophy" is a defined concept, and the concept of "philosophy" should be higher or broader than that of "history of philosophy", which should belong to the concept of "philosophy". According to the same definition principle, the proposition "Philosophy is the history of philosophy" is just the opposite of the previous proposition. The concept of "philosophy" has become a definite concept, while the concept of "philosophy history" is a superordinate concept. If these two propositions hold, then the result can only be "A equals A". Obviously, this is not what we want from these two propositions. This proposition must be regarded as offering us more than "A equals A". Therefore, we either agree that "the history of philosophy is philosophy" or "philosophy is the history of philosophy", but we cannot agree that these two propositions are true at the same time. From the perspective of conceptual relationship, we know that the history of philosophy should be the development history of philosophy itself, so the concept of "philosophy" should be greater than the concept of "philosophy" in extension.
Furthermore, the proposition that "the history of philosophy is philosophy" illustrates the nature of the history of philosophy and can help us better understand it. Starting from Hegel's philosophy, this proposition better explains his philosophy history view. However, the proposition that "philosophy is the history of philosophy" is not conducive to our understanding of the history of philosophy, nor can it help us to better understand philosophy, because according to this proposition, we can only and must understand the history of philosophy: when we have a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the history of philosophy, we can say that we have mastered philosophy. But this statement is obviously not true. First of all, understanding the history of philosophy is a necessary condition for us to learn philosophy, but it is not a sufficient condition. As a sufficient condition, hypothetical reasoning has only two correct forms. One is affirmative, that is, the antecedent of hypothetical judgment is affirmed in the premise. The conclusion affirms the latter part of it. This means that if you want to understand philosophy, you must learn the history of philosophy. If you understand philosophy, you will master the history of philosophy. This reasoning is obviously untenable, because it happens to be the opposite of its proposition as a premise. There is also a fixed form, that is, if you want to understand philosophy, you must deny its former part. You can't understand philosophy without studying the history of philosophy. This reasoning is also untenable, because it presupposes the proposition in the premise. Therefore, understanding the history of philosophy is not a sufficient condition for us to learn philosophy. Second, the history of philosophy is the development history of philosophy itself, and understanding the history of philosophy is bound to help us understand the development law of philosophy itself. But as Hegel said, the history of philosophy is not a simple accumulation of thoughts and theories of some philosophers. It is not a continuous occurrence of some accidental events in time, but a process in which philosophical thoughts with basic spirit are constantly displayed in time. In other words, the history of philosophy should have its inherent laws, which are the concrete manifestations of the role of philosophical thought in different time and space. Even if we don't adopt Hegel's speculative way, we should admit that philosophers of different times have discussed the same philosophical problems, which constitute an important chapter in the history of philosophy, and it is these philosophical problems that constitute the main content of philosophy we understand. In this sense, our understanding of philosophy must have surpassed our understanding of the history of philosophy, or the philosophy of each era must have updated contents different from those of the previous era. Therefore, understanding the history of philosophy does not mean that we can understand philosophy. On the contrary, for some philosophers (such as Wittgenstein), understanding the history of philosophy has become an obstacle for him to put forward his own new philosophy. There are such "unprecedented" philosophers in the history of philosophy, and it is precisely because of this that such philosophers will be continuously studied and surpassed by future generations.