Philosophy has been closely related to life since ancient times. In ancient Greece, the birthplace of western philosophy, Socrates believed that philosophy is a kind of knowledge about life knowledge and moral behavior, and learning philosophy is learning to be a man; Plato believes that philosophy is a kind of knowledge to study ideas; Aristotle believes that philosophy should study the problem of "metaphysics", that is, the real problem after experience. The "three Greek philosophers" all attached great importance to the philosophical inquiry about the meaning of life and moral practice. Modern western philosophers have different understandings of philosophy, but they think that learning philosophy is very important for people to settle down and explore the meaning and value of life. New Thomas believes that the task of philosophy is to help establish a truth based on faith, explain the mysterious part of theology, and refute the fallacy of bad faith, which is an exquisite theology; Frankfurt School believes that the object of philosophy research is society, and the real social function of philosophy lies in criticizing the existing unreasonable society and exploring the reasonable society. Social problem is the central issue of philosophy, and philosophy is a critical social theory. Existentialists believe that philosophy is human science, and it is about human ontology and ethics. The development of China's philosophy has its own characteristics, but it is similar to western philosophy, that is, philosophy must study the meaning of life and pay attention to ethical practice. It can even be said that China's philosophy put ethics at the center of philosophy from the beginning. Whether we talk about the relationship between heaven and man, between body and mind, between form and spirit, between knowing and doing, and between name and reality, we all regulate people's behavior for the purpose of life. For example, when it comes to the thoughts of the Yin people, The Book of Rites says: "Yin people respect the gods, lead the civil gods, and think before the ceremony". The "ceremony" here has both the meaning of sacrificial ceremony and the meaning of ethical norms; Confucius advocated "correcting the name" and thought that if the name was not regular, it would be nothing if the words were not smooth. He seems to be talking about a logical problem worthy of the name, the essence of which is the dialectics of name and birthright at the etiquette level. Laozi wrote a book about morality with more than 5000 words. The Tao Te Ching advocates the idea of "doing nothing without doing anything", which is actually an ethical thought and an aesthetic thought. From this point of view, although philosophers at all times and all over the world have various philosophical views, they also have an understanding of what relative philosophy is: that is, philosophy is closely related to life, and philosophy should have an insight into the true meaning of life and pay attention to people's life world.

Of course, philosophy's concern for people's life world does not mean that it can provide material means of life to meet people's needs, and it does not have such ability; But in a deeper sense, the function of philosophy is to provide the ultimate support for people's lives and the ultimate concern rooted in real life. There are various forms of human activities, which can be summed up in three basic fields: economy, politics and culture, which meet the three basic needs of human survival and development respectively. Economic activities meet the needs of a certain material means of life, political activities meet the needs of a certain social order, and cultural activities meet the needs of a certain meaning of life. Philosophy is of course a culture, or above all a culture. It is the core of culture, and its primary function is undoubtedly to meet the needs of the meaning of human life. However, philosophy is different from ordinary culture. It is to meet the spiritual needs of human form, that is, to pursue the ultimate meaning of life. Under modern conditions, this basic function of philosophy is more prominent. Since the industrial revolution, the vicious expansion of scientific and technological rationality and the negative influence of market economy have caused the division of social material desire and spiritual pursuit, and the vicious expansion of scientific and technological rationality and the negative influence of market economy since the industrial revolution have caused the division of social material desire and spiritual pursuit, which has tilted the whole human civilization towards material desire. The complexity and diversity of social factors also make it difficult for people to understand the ultimate meaning of life. Many people even doubt the ultimate meaning of life. The so-called "loss of meaning" and "confusion of belief" are spiritual phenomena of many social members. This shows that people living in the period of great social change need the help and support of philosophy to provide the meaning of life.

It must be noted that with the establishment of modern higher education system and discipline structure, philosophy is becoming more and more academic, professional and specialized, and philosophy is increasingly alienated from its foundation in the life world. In a more complex and technical form, various philosophical factions are separated and isolated from each other, so that a philosopher can not only understand the statement and argument of another philosopher, but also be confused about what kind of work another philosopher is engaged in. In a sense, the crisis of philosophy is rooted in the serious separation between philosophy and life. If philosophy is blindly galloping aside, it is extremely clever, and it will eventually dissipate in the display of wisdom, instead of returning to its source. Because of this, since the second half of the 20th century, philosophers have strongly called for "facing things themselves" and "turning to the life world", trying to rebuild the connection between philosophy and life, so as to end the situation of "homelessness" in philosophy and "helplessness" in human consciousness.