A Brief Analysis of Socrates' Philosophical Proposition —— A Comparative Study of Confucius and Socrates' Philosophical Thoughts
Before Socrates, Greek philosophy mainly studied the origin of the universe and what the world was made of, and was later called "natural philosophy". Socrates thinks that re-studying these problems has no practical significance for saving the country. Out of concern for the fate of the country and people, he turned to study human beings themselves, that is, to study human ethical issues, such as what is justice and what is injustice; What is courage and what is cowardice; What is honesty and what is hypocrisy; What is wisdom and how knowledge is acquired; What is a country, what qualities a person should have to govern a country well, how to cultivate talents for governing the country and so on. Later generations called Socrates' philosophy "ethical philosophy". He opened up a new field of philosophical research and made philosophy "return from heaven to earth", which is of great significance in the history of philosophy.
Humanism Before them, philosophers in ancient Greece and China paid attention to the study and thinking of nature, that is, taking "nature" as the object of observation and thinking. Of course, the "nature" they are thinking about is not what we now call nature as the sum of natural things and phenomena, but the essence of the movement and change of things. It seems hollow and unrealistic to be separated from the human subject. Now when tracing back to the source of humanism in western philosophy, it is generally traced back to Socrates. It is true that philosophers before Socrates, such as Heraclitus and Demok Park Yung-soo, also had aphorisms of life wisdom in their works, but Socrates was the first founder of human philosophy, and he really turned Greek philosophy from natural philosophy to the direction of studying personnel. The object of his study is no longer the nature, space or universe studied by natural philosophers, but the problems about people, people's thoughts, people's morality and people's sentiments, that is, the study of people's spiritual self. He believes that people's problems can not be discussed by detecting physical things, nor by empirical observation and logical analysis alone, but by observing people's living conditions according to their conscious activities. Socrates initiated the thinking of human beings in western philosophy. He believes that the purpose of philosophy lies not in the essence of the world, but in "knowing yourself". Socrates' philosophy pays attention to morality. The topics he is particularly interested in are "the character of virtue" and "what is good". He devoted himself to inventing a rational principle to distinguish right from wrong and how to understand the meaning of morality. He wants to set a reasonable standard for his life. These are all questions about human nature. Confucius' first contribution to China's philosophical tradition is that he took the lead in consciously establishing the rational spirit in the moral field, which represents the mainstream direction of the development of Confucianism and has a far-reaching impact on China's cultural tradition. Confucius was the first person in the history of China who really discussed the value, dignity and status of human beings from the perspective of human beings. He developed the budding humanistic thought in the early Zhou Dynasty and established his own theoretical system of humanistic studies. Confucius' Confucianism also embodies humanism. Confucian ethics is rooted in human nature. Confucius' thought contains the idea of "harmony between man and nature", and holds that the same moral order dominates the universe and the relationship between people. In addition, Confucius' Confucian philosophy is essentially a practical philosophy of life. He hoped that people would practice "benevolence", "righteousness", "loyalty", "forgiveness" and "self-denial" and take "great harmony" as their ideal. He regards the root of the "bad collapse of rites and music" as the moral decay of human beings, so the premise of "self-denial" and "self-denial and self-denial" are also "benevolence", and the core of Confucius' theoretical system is "benevolence", which embodies Confucius' position, value and dignity. The connotation of "benevolence" is extremely rich, but its core idea is "love", which is also a humanistic thought. As a requirement of "self-discipline" based on moral metaphysics and as a criterion for regulating "interpersonal relationship", it is undoubtedly of certain significance to make people live in harmony. The way to be a man is Confucius' thought on the cultivation and perfection of individual personality and morality, the foundation of people's own development and the premise of realizing their ultimate goal.
Starting from the wise, ancient Greek philosophy turned from paying attention to nature itself to paying attention to social ethics and people. But they only stay in the perceptual stage and can only draw relativistic conclusions. It was not until Socrates that this situation was fundamentally changed. Socrates called for a "turn of thought" to turn philosophy from studying nature to studying self, which is often said later to bring philosophy back from heaven to earth. He believes that the pursuit of natural truth is endless; I feel that the world is constantly changing, so the knowledge gained is also uncertain. Socrates wants to pursue an unchangeable, definite and eternal truth, which cannot be sought from the outside of nature, but only from himself and himself. Since Socrates, self and nature have been clearly distinguished; Man is no longer just a part of nature, but another unique entity different from nature.
In the philosophy of death, some scholars think that Confucius takes an evasive attitude towards fate: "How can you know death if you don't know life?" In today's words, we still don't understand the truth of life. How can I know how to die? China had a religion of worshipping heaven and earth in Shang Dynasty. Confucius believed in China's primitive destiny: Heaven is the master and personality god of the world. Confucius thought that "life and death are fixed, wealth is in heaven", "there is nothing to pray for if you are convicted in heaven" and "there is no gentleman if you don't know life", so he "fears destiny". But he is not superstitious about fortnight divination. He is also far away from ghosts and gods. According to Confucius, life and death cannot be discussed separately. If one is solved, the other will be solved naturally. To understand death, we must first understand life. The author believes that Confucius' thought of "how to know death without knowing life" emphasizes that death should be studied from birth, and its intention is not to ask people to avoid death at all, but to avoid turning "knowing death" into a purely theoretical problem that a few Confucian scholars should study hard and let ordinary people work hard.
Recognition and practical implementation. This can be regarded as another important feature of the sociality and practicality of Confucius' death thought. However, in any case, it can not constitute the theoretical basis for Confucius to ignore death and fundamentally deny the line of understanding the nature of life. Moreover, in fact, in this respect, Socrates, who is willing to be "ignorant" about the nature of death, is also inferior. Socrates believes that the soul is immortal, immortal and immortal. But he also thinks that nature is indelible, and instead emphasizes his own thinking. Fatalism is not only the reason why Socrates thinks about man himself, but also the result of his thinking. Socrates and Plato regard philosophy as an activity to prepare for death. Since ancient Greece, western philosophy has a long metaphysical tradition, that is, it is devoted to seeking and constructing a spiritual universe ontology, and its potential motivation is to make the soul immortal in a sense, which will also affect its salvation after death. Their differences also reflect the differences between eastern and western philosophical thoughts. The core question of westerners' life thinking is: why do people live? In other words, what is the basis and meaning of living? This is a question that a person asks himself when facing the universe. It is the ultimate foundation and meaning of life. Therefore, the western philosophy of life is essentially a philosophy of soul and a religion. The question that China people think about is: How to live? This is a question a person asks himself when facing others. What he wants to pursue is the principle of properly handling interpersonal relationships. Therefore, China's philosophy of life is essentially a moral philosophy and ethics.
Socrates' theory of soul further clarifies the difference between spirit and matter. Philosophers before Socrates have long said that the soul is immortal, and the opposition between idealism and materialism has sprouted. However, philosophers before him still had vague views on the soul, and some even regarded the soul as the finest substance, so the boundary between idealism and materialism was not clear. Until Socrates clearly regarded the soul as a spiritual entity that is essentially different from matter. In Socrates' view, the emergence and disappearance of things is just the aggregation and dispersion of something. In this way, he clearly opposed spirit and matter and became the founder of idealistic philosophy in the history of western philosophy.
Aristotle believes that Socrates gave up the study of nature, wanted to seek universal truth on ethical issues, and began to seek a definition for things. He opposed the relativism of wise men and thought that there could be various opinions, but there was only one truth. "Viewpoint" can change with everyone and other conditions, but "truth" is eternal. In Plato's early dialogues, almost all the topics discussed were how to define ethics. Socrates pursues the understanding of "beauty itself" and "justice itself". This is a universal definition of beauty and justice, real knowledge, Plato's "idea of beauty" and "idea of justice". This is the original form of "idealism" in the history of western philosophy. Socrates further pointed out that the causal series of nature is endless, and if philosophy only seeks this causal series, it is impossible to know the ultimate reason of things. He believes that the ultimate cause of things is "goodness" and goodness is the purpose of things. He replaced the study of causality with teleology, which opened the way for later idealism philosophy.
Socrates and Confucius lived in different environments, but they also realized that the separation of politics and morality was "unclean" in secular life. They all want to straighten out the social order through reintegration. The similarity of their thinking on political and moral issues shows that the problems encountered by human beings are similar and the methods to solve them are similar. However, the two sides choose different paths and orientations, but it reflects that they can't think without their own living environment. This kind of thinking shows obvious differences between the two sides. In a certain sense, this difference also indicates that the two cultures will go their separate ways in the future development. This difference between the two sages is actually two cultures &; This is an obvious sign that the eastern and western cultures have begun to differ at the source.
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