Philosophy is the core of culture. Where there is philosophy, there is culture. A philosophy always comes from a culture, and it is a summary, inheritance and development of a culture.

The progress of human culture is based on the progress of philosophy. Philosophy is the crystallization of culture, and philosophy is the result of culture. A culture inevitably breeds a philosophy, and the appearance of philosophy will promote the development of this culture. The alternating progress of culture and philosophy is like a person's feet walking on the ground. A culture inevitably produces a philosophy. Similarly, a philosophy will inevitably promote and develop a culture.

The basic problem of philosophy has two aspects:

The first aspect: what is the origin of existence and consciousness, matter and thinking. There have always been two fundamentally different answers to this question, thus forming two camps, two basic factions and two opposing routes in philosophy. Anyone who thinks that consciousness is primary and matter is secondary, that is, consciousness precedes the philosophy of matter, belongs to idealism; Anyone who thinks that matter is primary and consciousness is secondary belongs to materialism, that is, a philosophical school in which matter precedes consciousness.

In addition to these two fundamentally opposite answers (monism), there is another answer that matter and consciousness are two independent elements, and the philosophical school holding this view belongs to dualism.

Another aspect of the basic problem of philosophy is the identity of thinking and existence. Most philosophers, including materialist philosophers and some idealist philosophers, have given a positive answer to this question. Materialism and idealism have different solutions to this problem in principle.

Materialism recognizes the objective existence of the material world and its laws, thinks that thinking exists on the basis of reflection, and thinks that the world can be recognized; Idealism regards the objective world as the product of thinking and spirit, and thinks that knowing the world is spiritual self-knowledge. There are also some philosophers, such as D. Hume and I. Kant, who deny the possibility of knowing the world, or deny the possibility of knowing the world thoroughly, and are agnostics in the history of philosophy.