Re-reading Russell's History of Western Philosophy, Russell believes that philosophers are the products of his environment and are mutually causal. They are the result of the social environment and political system of their time, and may also be the reason for shaping the belief in the political system of later generations. So Russell added some pure social history chapters that he thought were very useful in writing. Russell's thought is actually what we traditionally call "knowing people and discussing the world". However, not everyone agrees with Russell. Eier wrote Philosophy of the Twentieth Century, which is intended to be a sequel to Russell's history of western philosophy. He believes that Russell's participation in social and political history has not enabled him to better clarify the views of philosophers he tried to associate with these factors. Therefore, when Eier wrote Philosophy of the Twentieth Century, he seldom talked about the biographical details of the philosophers he was concerned about. "In some cases, he just pointed out that they are mutual.

I don't think Eier opposes "commenting on the world by knowing people", but thinks that the content of Russell's "commenting on the world" is of little help to "commenting on people". As a history of philosophy, he has too much content about the world, while as a social history, he has too little content about the world, so he doesn't agree with it in his writing. Russell's introduction of political history into his writing should be related to his active participation in politics. Russell's interest transcends philosophy in many ways. Of his more than 60 works, 20 are purely philosophical. Because of his family tradition, he has been interested in politics all his life. Before he became a nobleman, he failed to run for parliament three times, twice on behalf of the Labor Party and once as a candidate for the National Women's Voting Rights Association. He was imprisoned twice for political reasons. It was an anti-war faction during World War I and agreed to threaten the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons after World War II. The reflection of his political attitude and interest in the history of western philosophy can be examined by distinguishing several pairs of concepts.

The first difference is related to discipline. Russell divided philosophers from 600 BC to his time into two categories, namely, those who want to strengthen social constraints and those who want to relax social constraints, thus pointing out the huge gap between disciplinarians and liberals. As a staunch supporter of liberalism, Russell believes that liberalism theory is an attempt to avoid this repetition. The second is the distinction between liberalism. Russell divided the two major liberal schools after Rousseau and Kant into "cold-headed school" and "soft-hearted school". The first row is from Bentham, Ricardo, Marx to Stalin, and the last row is funded by Hitt, Byron, Carlisle and Nietzsche to Hitler. Only the United States has completely avoided the development of these two tendencies. These two distinctions run through Russell's philosophy and political narrative, and the glory belongs to American liberalism. Pushing this idea to the extreme, it is not difficult to reach Fukuyama's view in The End of History, and American democracy and liberalism have become the last gospel.

This time, I mainly read a chapter about Descartes and consulted some related books, and I got a little understanding in the process.

First of all, it is Russell and Hegel's different choices of writing methods. Russell first talked about Descartes' scientific views on mathematics, physics, mechanics and the evolution of the universe, and then focused on his metaphysics. Hegel basically spoke in the order of Descartes' Principles of Philosophy, starting with logic and metaphysics, and then reaching Descartes' physics, mathematics and ethics. Hegel pointed out that in Descartes' era, our so-called philosophical knowledge was not divorced from the so-called scientific knowledge at that time, and all human sciences were regarded as philosophy, so a philosophical system integrating various sciences emerged. Descartes' theory, metaphysics is the foundation, and the understanding of the external world is guaranteed by God's communication between thinking and existence, so Hegel's words read more smoothly.

Second, about the influence of Descartes' philosophy at that time. Russell didn't write much about this, at least not as much as he described Locke's great influence. This may be because Locke's influence has continued to reality, and Descartes is regarded as the beginning of modern philosophy, but his philosophy is more like a theory that has been overcome by later generations. But if we don't emphasize the influence of Descartes' philosophy at that time, it is incomprehensible to talk about the great significance of later generations' transcendence of his philosophy. g？ Brown's The Influence of Descartes' Philosophy on French Literature says that after the middle of17th century, Descartes' spirit penetrated into all fields of knowledge, so that it not only dominated the field of philosophy, but also dominated literature, ethics, politics and sociology. Even in the field of theology, it affirmed its rights and gave theology a new form.

Cahill also pointed out that in the middle of17th century, people's views on the whole world changed fundamentally because of the victory of Descartes' philosophy. Only by understanding the rationality of Descartes, Mahleblanc, Spinoza and Leibniz's system philosophy can we highlight the great value of redefining rationality in enlightenment philosophy. Cassirer's enlightenment philosophy holds that in the system of Descartes and others, reason is the kingdom of truth in the minds of human beings and gods. /kloc-in the 0/8th century, rationality began to be viewed in a relatively simple way. Ideal is no longer the sum total of "natural concepts" that precede all experiences and reveal the absolute essence of things, but an acquired object, not a legacy. Reason is not a container of knowledge, principles and truth, but a kind of ability and strength. Compared with the concept of existence, ideal appeared as the concept of action in18th century.

Third, a few details. About Descartes' methods, Descartes wrote about refractive optics, atmospheric phenomena and geometry in 1635. Due to the publisher's urging, he scribbled a preface with the general title "On the Methods of Guiding Reason and Exploring Truth in Science", plus refractive optics, atmospheric phenomena and geometry, all of which are experiments of this method. Because the title of the book is too long, Descartes' friends once advised him to use Lun as the title. Descartes said that this book was just an "opinion" and dared not use "theory", so he finally decided to call it "exposition". Mr. Wang translated "Talking about Methods" and Mr. Pang also translated "Talking about Methods" into "Meditations on the First Philosophy". In 1960s, Mr. He Zhaowu translated the History of Western Philosophy and published several editions, but he still used On Methods, which did not show Descartes' intention and should be corrected. Speaking of Mr. Wang's translation of Talking about Methods, Mr. Wang prefaced Descartes' Life and Philosophy, thinking that Descartes' first published Talking about Methods was only 20,000 words, and three appendices, namely Refractive Optics, were added to confuse the writing order of the three articles with Talking about Methods.

In addition, Mr. Wang Taiqing thinks that introducing the concept of God into Descartes' philosophy is just a voyeurism. It ensures the objectivity of science through the existence of God as the same source of mind and matter and the absolute objectivity of God, thus covering up the development of science. This view is similar to Descartes' view that traditional beliefs are only expedient, but I think it is not reliable.

In Descartes' metaphysics, God exists as a link between thinking and existence, truth and reality. The unity of existence and thinking is the first essence, and existence (or extension) is not within "I think" (or directly determined understanding). Understanding the truth of existence should be based on proving the existence of God. The existence of God ensures the source and validity of all truth. The concept of God is the foundation of his whole metaphysics. Without this concept, Descartes is not convincing at all. In fact, his Light Law and Meditations on the First Philosophy have proved the existence of God many times. In his development, only through the intermediary of God can we know the external objects and interact with them. In the hands of Maleblanc, we have also developed the conclusion that everything is prepared for God. It is probably unreasonable to say that Descartes' purpose is to smuggle science in the name of God.