When surfing the web,
You must have seen a lot of spoofed philosophical memes, right?
For example, the parody of existentialism:
Ridiculed by Schopenhauer:
David Benata is a South African philosopher
Author of Survival or Destruction
Ridiculing Hegel's:
memes (network memes) is a popular network meme. The essence of memes is to imitate, derive, and copy (a serious explanation), which is why memes always have the same set of templates, which can be filled with different sentences to express their meaning.
Wait, did you notice the mention of the word essence in the paragraph above? The essence of everything may be a consciousness peculiar to human beings. Professor Zhao Lin of Wuhan University, a national famous teacher, said in the book "Lectures on the History of Western Philosophy":
A mouse in a cat's eyes is a small thing that jumps around alive, the cat pounces on it to catch it and eat it, and the matter is over, and the problem is solved. When a cat is confronted with a mouse, it never thinks about the question of "what is the essence of the mouse?"
Not long ago, this long-term Douban popular philosophy history book TOP10, Douban readers have commented that "a philosophical primer that speaks human words", "why can't you play ten stars", "read the most popular and comprehensive philosophy primer", and reprinted in the ideal country. After reading this book, you will find that getting started with philosophy is much easier and easier than you think. Today, I will share the excerpts from the book, starting from the question of "what is philosophy", and enter this philosophical journey together through the exploration of phenomena and essence.
(*This article memes is only a joke, do not take it seriously, understand philosophy or read oh)
What is philosophy?
Phenomena and essences
Excerpt from Zhao Lin's Lectures on the History of Western Philosophy
01
How to answer the question "What is philosophy"?
For those of us who study the history of philosophy, the answer to "what philosophy is" can only be found in the history of thought, the history of philosophy. But if we follow the historical trajectory of the development of Western philosophy from ancient Greek philosophy to modern philosophy, then we will find that the question of what philosophy is is actually a question with no definitive answer. From ancient times to the present, there have been some great wise people who, when they face this problem, they will be as confused as we are. There are many accomplished philosophers in the history of philosophy who at one point thought that they had answered the question once and for all about "what is philosophy?" But before they could die, a new group of philosophers began to criticize and refute their views.
Through the study of the history of philosophy, we will find that some of the basic questions of philosophy, such as the question of materialism and idealism, which have been debated endlessly, are the world fundamentally material or spiritual? What is the relationship between mind and matter? And other questions like that, which seem to be questions that are difficult to answer with certainty.
From ancient Greek times to the present day, these questions have been difficult to reach on by different philosophers, with different conclusions. At this point, we find that philosophy is very different from the natural sciences. In the natural sciences, once a problem is solved, its answer has a certain certainty, and future generations will no longer doubt its truth. For example, the three laws of Newtonian classical mechanics, since Newton proposed them, until today, people who study physics will not fundamentally question them. Within a definite space-time range, they are absolute truths.
Of course, beyond this space-time range, their utility may be limited and replaced by more precise theories such as relativity and quantum mechanics. But in the macroscopic world, Newton's classical mechanics is absolute truth, there is no doubt about it, and future generations will no longer doubt their reliability. In other areas of science, the same is true. But philosophy alone, as you can see, has never had a definitive answer to the questions that philosophers argue about from ancient Greece to the present day. People always argue about the old questions, such as, is the origin of the world a material particle, or a spiritual concept? Are the laws of the world objectively inherent, or are they the result of human thinking? Does truth-based knowledge come from empirical induction or from rational deduction? And issues like that. These questions seem to never have definitive answers, so the real philosophical questions are some questions of eternity.
As I said earlier, when one by one aspiring philosophers in history think that they have solved these eternal questions once and for all, their answers will soon be denied by a group of later philosophers. This dooms us to grasp philosophy only in the process of constant denial from generation to generation. So in that sense, to get a straightforward definition of philosophy, to explain in one sentence what philosophy is, it's a very difficult thing, at least I think I can't say it. If this question must be answered, then I can only say that philosophy is a spirit of skepticism and critical consciousness that constantly engages in self-denial and self-transcendence, a persistent inquiry into metaphysical questions that have never been definitively answered.
The question of "what is philosophy" can only be examined from the point of view of the object of philosophical inquiry. The nature of philosophy depends on its object. So, what kind of discipline does philosophy really explore? To answer this question, we must first consider the question of the relationship between phenomena and essence.
02
The binary split between essence and phenomenon
As a specific animal, man has some similarities with other animals, and there are also some differences. Of course, we can enumerate many characteristics of man, for example, man is rational, man is a social animal, man will use tools for labor, etc., but if we look at it from an epistemological point of view, we find that there is a big difference between man and animal, that is, man always likes to ask about the nature of things. People, like animals, pay attention to phenomena, but the difference between humans and animals is that in addition to paying attention to phenomena, people always like to ask about the essence behind phenomena.
People are even more focused on the essence than on phenomena. Animals never ask about essence, and essence is meaningless to animals. A mouse in a cat's eyes is a small thing that jumps around alive, the cat pounces on it to catch it and eat it, and the matter is over, and the problem is solved. When a cat is confronted with a mouse, it never thinks about the question of "what is the essence of the mouse?" For cats, mice are a pure phenomenon, and there is no essence at all.
But we humans can be said to be very different from animals on this issue. When people are faced with various things, they always have to look for the essential things behind these things, that is, the so-called internal laws. Even when we are confronted with the phenomena of the world, we cannot help but ask, what is the essence of these phenomena?
In fact, when we ask this question, we must first solve a more fundamental question, that is, does everything really have a certain essence, or do we give them a certain essence when we know things? In other words, is the so-called essence an objective property inherent in the thing itself, or a subjective habit of our human thinking? This is a fundamental question, and the problem itself is challenging for our habits of thought. If things themselves have an objective essence, then the ability to find the essence through phenomena shows that we humans are more intelligent than ordinary animals; but if the so-called essence is only a habit of our thinking in understanding things, then we humans are likely to complicate the otherwise simple problem.
Of course, our answer to this question is relatively certain, and we often choose the first answer without hesitation. But it doesn't make sense to think about the question in terms of the second answer. You can try to think that maybe things in the world don't matter what they are, but we humans are such an animal that our brains are structured into such a situation that we always like to complicate a simple problem. Therefore, when we are confronted with a living perceptual phenomenon, we cannot help but ask: What is its essence? What are the abstract laws behind that perceptual phenomenon? We like to ask questions like this, and it is this habit of asking questions that gives us philosophy.
As for the two points I have just put forward, it is difficult for me to simply determine who is right and who is wrong, and you can choose the answer for yourself. In fact, there have long been such divisions in the history of Western philosophy. It seems that the more modern one becomes, the more one tends to phenomenology, the more skeptical one becomes of the so-called objective nature. Modern philosophers seem to prefer to believe that the real world is, in the final analysis, the phenomenal world that emerges, and that the so-called essence is largely a consequence of people's subjective fiction. So we say that Western philosophy in the 20th century has moved toward phenomenology and existentialism, abandoning its essence. And traditional philosophy, from ancient Greek philosophy all the way to Hegel's philosophy, can be aptly called essentialist philosophy.
So, what is essentialism? It is from ancient Greek philosophy to the hegelian philosophy of the 19th century that they all have a fixed complex, that is, they all like to ask what is the essence behind things. Compared with phenomena, one of the biggest characteristics of essence is that essence is unique, unchanging, immortal, and immortal, and phenomena are always in motion, changing, and fleeting. Generation after generation lives, generation after generation dies, but when philosophers explore the nature of man, that essence is never changed because Aristotle is dead or alive. Because essence is a general thing, this general thing does not change because of the life and death of each specific person. In fact, this so-called essence is usually the result of the abstract thinking of philosophers, which is stripped from vivid and concrete phenomena by philosophers and regarded as the only unchanging, immortal, and immortal truth behind fleeting phenomena.
Thus arises a dualistic split, that is, a split between essence and phenomenon. Phenomena are seen as shallow and even false, while essence is seen as truly real and decisive. The opposition between ontological phenomena and essence also leads to the opposition between epistemological opinion and truth, and knowledge of phenomena is regarded as superficial opinion, while knowledge of essence is truth. In this dualistic split between the phenomenon and the essence, philosophers have turned their eyes to the essence behind the phenomenon, the real thing, which is the common practice of essentialism throughout the ages.
03
Philosophy may be a trap that humans have dug for themselves
Philosophy in the traditional sense, whether materialistic or idealistic, is essentialistic. For example, in our usual philosophical understanding, idealism holds that the essence of the world is the spirit, while materialism holds that the essence of the world is matter. Both spiritual and material are invisible and untouchable things that can only be grasped by abstract thought; they are abstract philosophical concepts which are said to be the ultimate things that determine the active, perceptual, and rich phenomena. This abstract concept of essence is of real concern to philosophers, and they are regarded as reality in the true sense. This philosophical view of emphasizing the essence behind the phenomena of things and insisting that the essence determines the phenomenon or existence is called essentialism or realism.
But the philosophy of the 20th century was anti-essentialist, and the philosophy of the 20th century claimed to have attained a kind of self-realization, believing that the so-called essence or reality was probably just an illusion invented by our human mind, and that the only things that were truly verifiable and evidentiary were phenomena. If we open any philosophical book in history, we will see that for thousands of years philosophers have argued that it is definitely not the phenomenon, but the essence behind the phenomenon. You say that this essence is matter, he says that this essence is spirit, and it has been debated for more than 2,000 years, and there is still no result. In this case, the philosophers of the 20th century found that these debates about the essence were boring arguments, and the essence itself may be something invented by the human mind. In this sense, we say that the philosophies of the 20th century have indeed reached a level of enlightenment, which openly argues that there is no need for human beings to question the essence anymore, that it is enough to pay attention to phenomena or existence. This insight does show the wisdom of modern philosophy, but in another respect it is precisely a kind of philosophical sadness.
I believe that whether the essence is inherent in the objective thing itself or a fabrication of the subjective thinking of man, it will always be the object of philosophical concern. Philosophy is destined to be a kind of thinking about essence, destined to have a metaphysical transcendence, and it can no longer be called philosophy. That is to say, even if the so-called essence may be the result of the fabrication of our human thinking, philosophy can only persevere in constantly questioning the essential things. Because we humans are destined to be an animal with transcendent tendencies, metaphysics is precisely the embodiment of human divinity. This is what makes human beings different from ordinary animals. It doesn't matter whether the world itself has an essence or not; what matters is that we humans are creatures who like to question the essence, so in our eyes, there is always something essential behind the phenomenon that is waiting for us to untangle and speak. Perhaps this is a tragedy in itself, but it is a noble tragedy that reveals a deep and mysterious destiny.
We humans are such an animal, we always have to explore profound meanings in simple life, always uneasy with animal-like ease and pursuing the heaviness of divinity. In fact, if you think about it, if you don't ask about the illusory nature behind the phenomenal world, he will live very easily, very easily, as easily as an animal. A cat or a dog lives very easily because they never think about metaphysical questions, never ask questions about the nature of things. For them, the world is a large number of accidental phenomena, and the whole meaning of the world is embodied in those vivid and concrete phenomena. Animals are not essentialists, but phenomenologists, and they don't pay attention to abstract philosophical questions, so animals live much easier than we humans do!
In this sense, philosophy itself may be a misunderstanding, a trap that we humans have dug for ourselves. We are not satisfied with the floating soil of the phenomenal world, but stubbornly seek the bottomless abyss of essence. But I insist that this trap is something that man must dig, and that this trap embodies the divinity of man. Therefore, at the entrance of the temple of Western philosophy, in this introduction to philosophy, I am going to instill in you a sense of tragedy, to make it clear that philosophy itself is a tragedy. But here I would like to emphasize that this tragedy is tragic, but it is a fate that we human beings must face.
If philosophy is an inevitable tragedy from which mankind cannot escape, then it has a certain sublime color. If we treat philosophy as a serious tragedy, we have actually transcended it. So it seems that the problem is not the tragedy itself, but our attitude towards it, how we look at it. Since philosophy is destined to be a tragedy of self-denial and self-sublimation of human beings, it also reveals the divinity and the light of hope for mankind.
Excerpt/Typography: Nine Tubes
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