For more than 400 years, rationalism and irrationalism have been intertwined in the development of French philosophy, sometimes rationalism is dominant and sometimes irrationalism is dominant.
Montaigne in Renaissance was a pioneer of French philosophy, and he had a double influence on Descartes and Pascal in17th century. Firstly, Montaigne's skepticism influenced Descartes' methodology of "doubting everything" and his spirit of free criticism. Montaigne's motto is "What do I know?" With the argument of Piroism in ancient Rome, everything is doubtful. Montaigne is considered as a free thinker with critical spirit. Descartes' suspicion of knowledge gained from experience and previous scientific knowledge, his criticism of ready-made knowledge and his daring to doubt everything were all influenced by Montaigne.
Montaigne also influenced Pascal's irrationalism and humanism. Since the Renaissance, some humanists praised the greatness, dignity and rationality of human beings, while Montaigne revealed the smallness, sadness and faith of human beings. This makes Pascal synthesize on a higher level, which not only makes us see the greatness and dignity of human beings, but also makes us realize our own smallness and sadness. We can not only see the function of human rational ability, but also see the incompetence of reason and the transcendence of belief. Pascal fully affirmed the role of geometry, and widely used the methods of proof and deduction in geometry in his scientific research. However, Pascal also thinks that the geometric method is limited. In his view, it is a rational arbitrariness to excessively raise the role of reason or reason. Sensitive spirit, subtle spirit and accurate spirit based on human heart are closely related to daily life, which is a good insight for people. After Descartes and Pascal, rationalism and irrationalism were established.
18th century is the era of rationalism. /kloc-French philosophers in the 0 th and 8 th centuries turned rationalism established by philosophers in the last century into a realistic political principle. Rationalism became the criterion for them to oppose feudal thoughts and describe the blueprint of a new society. Rationality has become the standard to measure everything, and everything in the past must be tried before a rational court.
19th century is an era of confrontation between rationalism and irrationalism. In the French philosophy of19th century, Renoir's new criticism and Comte's positivism inherited the tradition of enlightenment philosophy, while the three philosophers who changed the development direction of French philosophy and laid the foundation of modern French philosophy inherited the tradition of irrationalism.
In the 20th century, in addition to Bachelard's philosophy of science and structuralism, Sartre's existentialism is irrational, and postmodernism is also a manifestation of irrationalism. Derrida, Foucault, Druze and others followed Nietzsche and Heidegger and thoroughly criticized the western metaphysical tradition from Plato and Aristotle to Kant and Hegel through Descartes. But on the whole, French philosophy in the 20th century was dominated by irrationalism.
It can be seen that rationalism and irrationalism are intertwined in the development of French philosophy for more than 400 years. Sometimes rationalism prevails, and sometimes irrationalism prevails. This tangled state has been running through.
Re-evaluate the value of "progress" and "liberation"
Postmodernism has a series of questions about "progress": Is human history really progressing? Isn't progress a utopian ideal? And is "progress" really a good thing?
With the development of capitalism, France has entered a post-industrial society from an industrial society, and modernity and post-modernity have become important themes of French philosophy. The enlightenment spirit of advocating rationality, freedom, equality and progress is a prominent embodiment of modernity.
Rousseau was the earliest critic of modernity. He criticized capitalist culture, social and political system and educational model by opposing nature and civilization. Rousseau realized that the progress and development of science and art are contradictory to people's happiness, and the development of culture and civilization is not necessarily proportional to people's moral level. Because if the culture in real life is dominated by luxury, money and low-grade fashion, it will completely become a "money culture" and a low-grade style.
Rousseau believes that from the natural state to the social state, human beings will enter inequality from equality. Every step forward in human society, inequality will deepen. Engels wrote when commenting on Rousseau's theory in his Anti-Turin Theory: "In this way, Rousseau saw that inequality is progress. However, this kind of progress includes confrontation and retrogression ... as civilization moves forward, inequality will move forward ... oppressors. This is the negation of negation. " As Engels said, Rousseau's book "can be said to be a wonderful display of its own dialectical origin". It is not only a weapon for ideological struggle against the Christian feudal theory "everyone is equal before God"; At the same time, it also includes the revolutionary slogan "equality, freedom and fraternity" of the French bourgeoisie. 35 years before the French Revolution, Rousseau not only realized the inevitability of the revolution, but also proved its legitimacy in philosophy and jurisprudence.
Of course, Rousseau doesn't think that under social conditions, people are doomed to be unfree and unequal. On the contrary, Rousseau regards the unfree and unequal social state as an unreasonable social state. The negation of negation that Rousseau wants to achieve is to make people realize higher social freedom and equality in a brand-new social state. Later, Rousseau's thought deeply influenced the formation of Hegel's thought.
How to treat rationality and progress are two problems in French postmodern philosophy. Foucault and others oppose the totality, violence and totalitarianism of reason. "Progress" and its related concept of "liberation" have also been "deconstructed" by postmodernism. Postmodernism has a series of questions about "progress": Is human history really progressing? Isn't progress a utopian ideal? And is "progress" really a good thing? What are the consequences of "progress"? How can we see the continuous loss of human freedom and the continuous deterioration of the natural environment brought about by "progress"?
Postmodernism also has different views on "liberation". First, postmodernism thinks that "liberation" is a grand narrative and meta-discourse, which is abandoned by postmodernism; Secondly, the process of people's liberation is also a process of gradually gaining the subject status and becoming an independent subject, and the process of forming and constructing the subject is also a process of gradually disciplining people, which eventually restricts and restricts people and makes them lose their freedom. So far, postmodernism not only deconstructs the rationalism principle of French enlightenment philosophy, but also deconstructs the concepts of "progress" and "liberation" of enlightenment philosophy. Finally, postmodernism believes that the development and excessive abuse of science and technology will lead to environmental pollution and the destruction of ecological balance, making the earth more and more unsuitable for human survival; What's more, science can't solve people's spiritual problems-neither science nor reason can solve people's morality, values, ideals and beliefs, nor their ultimate concern.
Multiple representations of human nature and society
Compared with other countries' philosophy, French philosophy pays more attention to the study of people and society. French philosophers are not only addicted to the realm of reason, but also lack emotion. Many of them are also poets, writers, artists and social activists.
Compared with the philosophy of other European countries, modern French philosophy seems to have the following styles and characteristics:
First, French philosophy has always been permeated with a spirit of doubt and advocating rationality.
The spirit of doubt and the spirit of advocating rationality can be said to be two sides of the same thing. If doubt is negative and critical, then advocating rationality is positive and fruitful. The purpose of doubt is to advocate rationality, or doubt is just a means of rationality.
From the nominalist Abelard in the Middle Ages and Montaigne in the Renaissance to the skepticism of Descartes, Bell and Voltaire, the founders of modern philosophy in the18th century, this skepticism spirit that dares to challenge tradition and authority has a long historical tradition in France. Even postmodern philosophy in the second half of the 20th century embodies the spirit of skepticism. It doubts people's worship of rationalism and scientific spirit, historical progress theory and enlightenment spirit, and modernity.
Second, man and society are the focus of French philosophy.
Nature and man are eternal themes of philosophy. Compared with other countries' philosophy, French philosophy pays more attention to the study of people and society-
Helvetius paid attention to and emphasized human spirituality, and regarded human as the object of culture and the product of education. Existentialism is an anthropology, and Comte is the direct founder of modern sociology. From Durkheim to structuralism and postmodernism, they all attach great importance to the study of modern society. These should be regarded as the contribution of French philosophy to the understanding of human society. Postmodernism's reflection and criticism of post-industrial society is no less than a sobering agent for us who are vigorously promoting modernization.
Third, openness.
/kloc-French philosophers in the 0/8th century absorbed a lot of British materialist philosophy (especially Locke's empiricism), and Diderot also absorbed a lot of dialectical factors in Leibniz's philosophy. In the19th century, not only did Renuville's new criticism inherit Kant's philosophy to a great extent, but Amelin's idealism was closely related to Hegel's philosophy. "3H" (Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger), "3M" (Marx, Max Weber, Marcuse) and Nietzsche are all German philosophers, while Kerr Kaigl is a Danish philosopher and Freud is an Austrian psychologist. The ideological elements of these philosophers influenced the face of French philosophy in the 20th century.
Fourth, social participation.
French philosophy is not a philosophy under study, but a philosophy closely related to the real struggle. French philosophers don't like living in cubicles to speculate on metaphysics, but pay more attention to social change and political struggle. They have a sense of mission and the times and are active participants in the real revolutionary movement.
Fifth, it has an indissoluble bond with literature.
French philosophers are not only immersed in the rational field, but also lack emotion. Many of them are poets, writers, artists and social activists. Not only Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and others are famous writers, dramatists and literary critics who are good at expressing their philosophical thoughts in literature, but also Bergson, Sartre and Camus who are later than them have all won the title of Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Spread of French Philosophy in China
Since 1990s, China scholars' interest in French philosophy has gradually surpassed their interest in German philosophy. This change of academic interest is related to the development of French philosophy itself, and also closely related to the development of academic ecology in China.
Judging from the spread of French philosophy in China since 100, China people's main interest in French philosophy mainly focuses on the following aspects:
Descartes philosophy. China people have dual interests in Descartes' philosophy: on the one hand, his philosophy advocates subjectivity and rationalism epistemology; On the other hand, his dualist philosophy insists on mechanical materialism in the field of physics, which is an important inspiration to French materialism in the18th century, and his theory of mind-body relationship has opened the precedent of western philosophy of mind. Since 1980s, with Chinese mainland's research on subjectivity, epistemology and western philosophy of mind,
/kloc-enlightenment philosophy and materialist philosophy in the 0/8th century. The ideas of freedom, equality, democracy and rule of law put forward by Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau are important theoretical sources of Marxist social and political theory. /kloc-The materialistic thoughts of Diderot and Holbach in the 8th century are an important theoretical source of Marxist dialectical materialism.
Comte's positivism philosophy, Comte's positivism scientific methodology and its basic principles are the basis for us to understand Anglo-American positivism philosophy, which is of guiding significance for us to understand positivism and pragmatism philosophy, analytical philosophy and scientific philosophy. The sociology of Comte's positivistic sociology and Durkheim is regarded as the pioneer of sociology by China people.
Bergson's philosophy of life. At the beginning of the 20th century, Bergson's philosophy of life creation and evolution was introduced into China together with Darwin's theory of evolution and Huxley's theory of evolution, which provided vitality for intellectuals who wanted to promote social change in China at that time.
Sartre and others' "existentialism". In the early days of China's reform and opening up (late 1970s and early 1980s), after the great discussion about "practice is the only criterion for testing truth", Sartre fever and Nietzsche fever were once popular on university campuses. Although Sartre's views of extreme individualism and absolute freedom, such as "existence precedes essence", are unreasonable, he emphasized that young people should strive for themselves and be themselves. Take the initiative to take responsibility. These thoughts coincided with the thought that young people were willing to plan their own choices at that time, and played a positive role in emancipating their minds and rejuvenating the society.
French phenomenological trend of thought. The phenomenology of German philosophers Husserl and Heidegger spread to France, which had a wide and long-term influence and a phenomenological trend of thought appeared. It has influenced the existentialism of Sartre and others and the postmodernism of Derrida and Foucault. In recent ten years, with the deepening of Husserl's and Heidegger's research, the younger generation of scholars in China have also become interested in the research and thoughts of French phenomenologists.
Structuralism. At the end of last century, there were many domestic scholars who studied Saussure's structuralist linguistics, Levi Strauss's structuralist anthropology and Althusser's structuralist Marxism. Since the new century, the academic circles in China have made new achievements in the study of Lacan's post-Freudianism. In recent years, the study of Badier, which was deeply influenced by Althusser and Lacan, has gradually warmed up in China.
Postmodernism philosophy. Since 1990s, postmodernism has formed a new research upsurge in China. Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Deleuze and Baudrillard all became the important research objects of China's doctoral thesis. The thoughts of these philosophers reflect and criticize the development of capitalism itself, the modernization process of the west for hundreds of years, especially the western modernity theory. They oppose the supremacy of technology. Oppose overemphasis on people-oriented, advocate the harmony between man and nature, and advocate that instrumental rationality should not be overemphasized and value rationality should not be ignored. These viewpoints are of great significance to the development of modern and contemporary China, especially the scientific development and ecological civilization construction.
It can be said that since 1990s, China scholars have gradually surpassed German philosophy in their interest in French philosophy. In the 1980s and 1990s, China was interested in 17 and18th century French philosophy, and was interested in existentialism and structuralism. Since 1990s, China scholars have become more and more interested in the study of phenomenology and postmodernism in French philosophy.