1. What is philosophy? Philosophy is a theory and theoretical system about world outlook and methodology. World outlook is people's fundamental view of the whole world and the relationship between people and the world. Methodology is the fundamental principle and method for people to understand and transform the world. World outlook and methodology are unified in the thinking process of the thinking subject; Unity is in the practical process of interaction between subject and object of thinking; The role of subject and object in the process of history, reality and future development.
2. The relationship between philosophy and general consciousness and philosophy: from the perspective of the occurrence of subject thinking, philosophy originated from the simplest general consciousness or philosophy, which is a more comprehensive, deeper and higher-level understanding of the objective world and life by the thinking subject, a sublimation of general consciousness and philosophy, and a theoretical system of the world outlook and methodology of the thinking subject.
3. The relationship between philosophy and specific scientific: Philosophy takes the whole world as the research object, revealing the same essence and the most universal laws of all things in the world. What specific scientific reveals is the universal law in special fields. Philosophy is the generalization and summary of natural science, social science and thinking science. Philosophy plays a guiding role in the development of specific scientific.
Second, the basic content
1, origin
The fundamental problem of philosophy, also known as the basic problem and the highest problem of philosophy, refers to the relationship between thinking and existence, consciousness and matter. Engels made this clear for the first time in his book ludwig feuerbach and the End of German Classical Philosophy written in 1886. It provides a correct standard for distinguishing materialism and idealism, two opposing philosophical systems and schools, and evaluating them objectively.
2. Connotation and meaning
The basic problem of philosophy has two aspects:
The first aspect is about which is the origin: thinking and existence, consciousness and matter. There have always been two fundamentally different answers to this question, thus forming two camps, two basic factions and two opposing routes in philosophy. Any philosophical school that thinks that consciousness is primary and matter is secondary, that is, consciousness precedes matter, matter depends on consciousness and matter is the product of consciousness belongs to idealism; Any philosophical school that thinks that matter is primary and consciousness is secondary, that is, matter precedes consciousness and consciousness is the product of matter, belongs to materialism. In addition to these two fundamentally opposite answers, there is also an answer that matter and consciousness are two independent elements. The school of philosophy that holds this view is called dualism, which is an incomplete philosophy that vacillates between materialism and idealism, and often turns to idealism in the end.
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. However, 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 completely. They are agnostics in the history of philosophy.
Third, modern development.
Modern western philosophy is formed with the self-awakening of human beings. During this period, people's thoughts returned to the world from the other side of religion, thus discovering nature and people themselves, and began to pursue knowledge and yearn for personal freedom.
First stage
15 ~17th century is the first stage of modern western philosophy. The research center of this stage is man and nature, and humanism and natural philosophy are two interrelated but different ideas. Humanism advocates that people are the center and everything is for the benefit of people, and opposes the theory of immortality of the soul and asceticism. Representatives of natural philosophy generally advocate the scientific method of empirical observation, rather than the deductive method of empirical philosophy. Italian B. Tlesi believes that matter is eternal, and the opposition between hot and cold is the reason for the movement of matter; G Bruno believes that the universe is infinite, the solar system is only a part of it, and nature is God, which is made up of lists.
List is the unity of matter and spirit, matter and form. Many representatives of natural philosophy are natural scientists, and their scientific research is often mixed with magic, alchemy and astrology, which brings a lot of imagination and fiction to their philosophical thoughts.
stage Ⅱ
The second stage of modern western philosophy is1from the beginning of the 7th century to1the end of the 8th century. At this stage, philosophy focuses on the relationship between cognitive subject and cognitive object, forming two schools of empiricism and rationalism. Materialist empiricism, represented by Bacon and Locke, holds that the acquired external feeling is the source of knowledge and the feeling is reliable. Bacon admitted that nature is material, and material is dynamic and diverse. The purpose of mastering knowledge is to know and conquer nature, and knowledge is power. Locke believes that the mind is a' whiteboard' and thoughts are the product of external things leaving traces on the whiteboard. Materialist rationalism, represented by B. Spinoza, holds that the object of knowledge is objective nature, but only rationality can grasp it, and feels that experience is unreliable. Spinoza regards nature as the only entity, and thinks that thinking and extension are two attributes of a unified and unique entity, and individual things are the deformation of entities. Only by rationally grasping unique entities can we know individual things.
Rationalism, represented by Descartes and G.W. Leibniz, holds that real knowledge can only be obtained through clear and accurate reasoning with rational cognitive ability on the basis of a completely clear and unquestionable axiom. Descartes put forward the theory of' natural concept', which holds that people's rational cognitive ability is natural, and the self-evident first axiom is also inherent and natural in life. But he recognized the independent existence of both spiritual and material entities, and unified these two relatively independent entities into an absolute entity' God'. Leibniz further developed Descartes' thought, thinking that all ideas are innate, but they originally exist in people's minds as tendencies, endowments, habits or natural potentials, and can only really appear after processing. The empiricism represented by Barclays and Hume holds that "being is being perceived". Barclays concluded that there is nothing in the world except the perceived spiritual entity and the perceived perception; Hume further believes that there is only perception in reality, experience is composed of perception, and everything except perception is unknowable. /kloc-in the 0/8th century, in addition to the dispute between rationalism and empiricism, there were a number of French enlightenment thinkers and encyclopedic materialist philosophers who had a great influence on the development of western philosophy. The second stage of modern western philosophy is generally characterized by mechanical metaphysics.
The third stage
From Kant's philosophy at the end of 18, modern western philosophy entered the third stage, which was called "German classical philosophy" in the history of philosophy. The main representatives are Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Feuerbach.
Under the premise of overcoming the mechanical and metaphysical, the first four kinds of people strive to unify the world on the basis of thinking and think that the essence of the world is spiritual. Spirit, ego and subject occupy a central position in their philosophy. Kant admits that there is a "thing itself" outside people's sensory experience, which is the source of sensory experience, but it can never be recognized. The stimulation of the object itself makes people have sensory experience, and then the perceptual and intellectual knowledge of the subject is combined with the innate forms such as time and space, category, etc., and the sensory experience materials are sorted out to achieve a systematic understanding of the phenomenon; Rationality is the highest comprehensive ability higher than intellectuality, which requires understanding the nature of the world, but it can never achieve its goal. If reason absolutes the relative phenomenon and thinks that it has mastered all the truth, it will inevitably fall into the false phase. Fichte further abolished Kant's "thing itself" and thought that everything in the world was created by "self", and the subject "self" created the object "non-self", further realizing the unity of self and non-self. Schelling founded the same philosophy, thinking that object and subject, nature and spirit, existence and thinking are opposite on the surface, but in fact they are the same, and they are all different stages of "absolute identity" without distinction. Hegel regards the whole world as the evolution process of the "absolute concept" itself, and thinks that the absolute concept itself contains two aspects that are both opposite and unified.
Their unity of opposites makes the absolute concept evolve along the pattern of syllogism of unity of positive and negative, and makes the absolute concept externalized into nature. The evolution of nature has produced human beings and human society with self-knowledge ability. Human cognition gradually develops from understanding nature to understanding self and consciousness itself, and finally reaches the complete self-knowledge of absolute idea, and the whole world returns to absolute idea itself. Feuerbach was the last philosopher who had the greatest influence on German classical philosophy. He criticized Hegel's philosophy as "speculative theology". He thinks that nature is the only reality, and there is nothing but nature and people. God and God are both products of human self-alienation. Man created God and God, not God and God created man. People are born in nature, and people and their thinking organs are the products of nature. Without nature, thinking can't exist. It's not spirit that produces nature, but spirit that produces nature. However, Feuerbach abandoned both Hegel's idealism and Hegel's dialectics.