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Two paths of western philosophy

Abstract: The history of western philosophy in our usual sense is sorted out from the perspective of its main contents: world outlook, epistemology, methodology and so on. However, the development of two important concepts can also be used as an overview of the history of western philosophy. From the perspective of rationality and irrationality, it is not difficult to see the efforts made by western philosophy in the entanglement between God and man for thousands of years, and they can be summarized into two development paths.

Keywords: rationality; Irrational; God; mankind

The history of western philosophy has devoted the endless efforts of many philosophers. No matter from any angle, it is obviously a history of development, whether it is world outlook or methodology. But this is our usual understanding.

If we look at it from another angle, from its core: the entanglement between God and man, we can clearly see that this is a process of continuous development and perfection of two roads and brilliant achievements.

First, start with God's world.

It can be simply said that from top to bottom, people have been looking for themselves rationally in irrational things.

In the initial exploration, human beings habitually seek the answers to the world and all beings from themselves, trying to explain their ultimate place through God or God. However, in this series of efforts, the image of God is dazzling, but people can never find their proper position. No matter from folk beliefs to oral fairy tales, or from the divine spectrum [1] to Homer's epic [2], the following versions are the same. People have never felt their existence, and have been wandering in the world of God, hoping that an omnipotent God can bring light and happiness to mankind.

However, in the world of God, we see a strong human shadow. Whether it is the Divine Spectrum or Homer's Epic, under the strong will of God, the entanglement between human beings and God is everywhere described as similar to human beings, with human feelings and behaviors. It can be said that under the inspiration of the aura of God, people at that time could not tell whether they looked like people or people came from God.

Natural philosophers from Thales began to get rid of the mythical world and began to look for answers from outsiders. Any element such as water and fire may become their origin and starting base. However, this thought is still branded as a religious myth, which regards man and nature as a whole and thinks about man from the perspective of nature only. And their concern for nature has given nature a godlike world.

Protagoras seems to have begun to really pay attention to people. But he began to think about the earth and the universe where human beings live on the basis of natural philosophers, trying to get rid of God's world and return to the world in his field of vision. But this world is not the same physical, social or living environment of people, but the whole living environment of people, which is the big environment of living with God or God. He found man in God's world and his value to the world-man is the measure of everything, everything exists when it exists, and it does not exist when it does not exist [3]. But his "person" is not a person, but a relative person, a person derived from God and a person with certain limitations. We still don't know our place in the universe.

Socrates knew. He realized that human beings are human beings, and his main exposition on human beings was based on individual identification with social norms composed of human beings. Compared with human nature, divinity is only the transcendence and sublimation of individuals, and it is the intercourse between individuals and divinity in some wonderful occasions, realizing a leap-forward understanding. He doesn't belong to us, even though he is among us. Plato discovered the "idea" of God's world among human beings, but in Plato's concrete practice, he found that his idea could not completely fit with the real human world, leaving only "Socrates said: Maybe there is its embryonic form in the sky, so that anyone who wants to see it can see that he has settled down there ..." [4].

It can be said that Socrates' philosophers have been exploring along this road, trying to find the power to explain the whole universe in human beings and human society. This power is idealized and has a certain divinity. All these facts are nothing more than the rational power of human beings resorting to irrational weapons to realize the discovery of human value and significance. However, no matter the power of moral norms or the constraint of political system, the efforts made by human beings in the rational world can never be offset by the slight erosion of irrational special cases, because these are all human cognition and are slight in the irrational body. Therefore, in such a dilemma, people will still think of God, and there is still the shadow of God in the world.

It is no wonder that in Plato and Aristotle's world, no matter how powerful the rational power is and how clever the scientific means are, people are always prisoners of God. And its hope is still the individual's transcendence and appeal to the group, thus awakening the sacred glory of all people and building the sacred world of human beings. It is in this effort that the ultimate evil consequence of mankind is the comprehensive denial of mankind in the Middle Ages. Only by completely surrendering to the feet of the personality god Jesus Christ can we be saved.

Finally, in the world of Christ, this road was completely perfected, and people were found in the process from top to bottom. After a fruitless journey in the world of natural gods and natural gods, we found such a personality god, established the image of a god among human beings, and made people appear as children of God. All this did not last long, but was replaced by the Renaissance, a movement that emphasized human irrationality.

When God's world descends to man's world, a great rational glory shines on the earth, which seems to be a great leap, but it is actually a rational imagination, but there is no rational foundation, and then the divinity loses its power, and this development comes to an end. The other way is to surpass the irrational level of human beings. When people find that God in irrationality can't give us anything, they begin to sublimate rationality on the basis of irrationality. Therefore, the second way is to start with feeling and experience and make a rational experience journey.

Second, pay attention to the human world.

It can also be said that it is from bottom to top, looking for the rational power like God in people's feelings and experiences.

The revival of mankind began with the materialistic experience of the Roman Empire. The extravagance of Rome brought human sensibility to the extreme, but at that time it was still enslaved by God's thoughts and had no thoughts. Suffering from this, the earliest consciousness of the second way should be in Plato's Feeling. The religious salvation in the middle ages lies in the choice of self; When Coussa said that man is as creative as God; When Bruno went deep into things and began to explore, human feelings germinated. Humans have found their own feelings and experiences in the universe, which is the foundation of human existence.

Therefore, the emergence of British empiricism, which began in roger bacon, started the journey of human experience, and began to put the research angle on the perspective of human beings, and the irrational consciousness of human beings began a theoretical war. In Bacon's Discovery Experience, it is emphasized that the prosperity of modern science and technology is the foreshadowing, and the study of human beings needs various means of human society-science and technology; For people in God's world, under the framework of rationality, thinking is the position and weapon.

Then Hobbes shouted "All knowledge comes from feeling", and experience began a systematic journey. At the same time, mainland rationalism has been clinging to God in an attempt to realize the "divinity" of human groups one day, and they will still be revived one day.

In the contest between rationality and irrationality, Kant seems to be reinterpreting and reconstructing. In his philosophy, he tried to find the attribute of God among human beings, but what he really discovered was human beings. Because only on earth does God have his meaning. So, God is dead, and actually people are dead.

At this time, Hegel appeared, and he began to define rationality and irrationality, and finally realized the thorough discovery of human beings-shaping the god in the complete sense of human beings in the human world, which can be said to be empiricism, but it was Hegel who discovered the uncertainty and certainty of human beings in the entanglement of human nature and divinity in philosophy for thousands of years-irrationality and rationality, which enabled human beings to sublimate and transcend. In the following 1200 years, in the struggle between rationality and irrationality, Marx realized his own development in the sense of human, realized the interpretation of human nature and social significance, and constructed the peak experience of human. Feuerbach's subtle explanation of rationality and irrationality in the individual sense of human beings has continued. As a result, personal efforts, including the development of modern philosophy initiated by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, have achieved unprecedented prosperity in the ways and methods of human irrational research.

So far, the battle between rationality and irrationality of human beings is still going on, but the second road as western philosophy has been formed; By ascending in his world, man continues to find God in the full sense of man.

Third, the correlation between the two paths.

However, the development of these two paths is not isolated or parallel. They are not only blended, but also a third kind of effort, which can be said to be the product of the intersection of the two, that is, starting from parmenides's ontology, trying to depersonalize philosophy in an attempt to realize the discovery of depersonalized philosophy through human efforts. However, in the end, the formation of existential philosophy, such efforts are still vague and impersonal, and the entanglement is between people and impersonal.

People's efforts are positive and their wishes are beautiful. However, reality tells us that this road seems to have no end and no direction. From Jaspers to Heidegger to Sartre, this series of efforts did not give a clear path, but gave us another angle, a philosophical view of the world.

Therefore, when we calm down and think, there are actually two other ways besides these two. In fact, these two roads have always been accompanied by the development of God and man.

1. Since human beings are used to being entangled in the world between man and God, they can realize their true identity, which is neither declining nor rising, but a single law, and its purpose is neither rational identity nor irrational identity. However, what are the research methods and ways to achieve this unity? Perhaps this is not the effort that philosophy should make at all. However, is philosophy divorced from human rationality and irrationality still philosophy?

2. separation. Complete separation, that is, the time and space between us and our existence, whether consciously or unconsciously, is complete separation. The reason for the entanglement is that the existence of a third party can happen. Then let's apply our customary expression: ternary theory. You can say yes or no, "yes" because they are related, "no" because they can be independent; Monism and dualism are not contradictory. But the biggest problem is, based on the reality that human rationality and irrationality coexist now, how to realize their separation and separation? Is there any value and significance in exploring and developing such separation and separation?

Therefore, we can conclude that the real philosophical path is determined by its research object or connotation. If we want to achieve a philosophical breakthrough, we need to start with the object or connotation first. However, based on the reality of human characteristics, the ultimate philosophical breakthrough actually lies in human beings themselves.

References:

[1] hesiod. Scope of working hours [M]. Zhang, translation. Beijing: Commercial Press, 199 1.

[2] Homer. Homer's epic [M]. Luo Niansheng, Wang Huansheng, translated. Beijing: People's Literature Publishing House, 1994.

[3] Zhang Zhiwei. History of western philosophy [M]. Beijing: Renmin University of China Press, 2002: 67.

[4] Plato. Republic [M]. Guo Binhe, Zhang, translated. Beijing: Commercial Press, 1986: 386

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