Reading Comics Increases Wisdom - Comic Stories of Western Philosophy Masters (3)

Author: Yan Yuqiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: German classical philosophy is the peak of the development of Western traditional philosophy, as well as its end. After German classical philosophy, Western philosophers openly broke away from traditional philosophy, sharply critiqued the philosophical tendency of traditional philosophy that emphasized reason, focused on general principles and universal essence, and proposed their own new insights and theories in philosophy, thus creating a situation where philosophical schools were numerous and ideological concepts were diverse. Although these doctrines are varied and diverse, they can be generally divided into two main trends: "humanism" and "scientificism." Humanist philosophers generally believed that philosophy should not study the external natural world but should focus on human issues; philosophy should not study or advocate reason but should explore the irrational domain of humans, promoting human instincts, intuition, experience, and the ability to have sudden insights. Therefore, humanism is generally expressed as irrationalism. Scientificist philosophers, on the other hand, did not oppose philosophy from studying the external natural world, so scientificism is generally expressed as positivism or a theory concerning the methodology of scientific research. What is to be introduced here are the various schools of humanist philosophy in modern Western philosophy. It is generally believed that the beginning of modern Western humanist philosophy lies in the non-rationalistic will philosophy established by the German philosopher Schopenhauer. After that, although various humanist schools emerged, their main principles did not change much. The book mainly introduces seven schools, namely, voluntarism, vitalism, existentialism, psychoanalytic philosophy, the Frankfurt School, philosophical anthropology, and theological humanism. Some people call the 20th century philosophy the "age of analysis." Although this term is overly simplistic, it reminds people of the fact that analytical philosophy became the most powerful philosophical trend of the 20th century. Ancient Greek philosophy contemplated the entire world, studying the origin of the world or the highest principles of the world, thereby constructing a worldview or ontology. Modern philosophy, initiated by Descartes, reflected on the cognitive abilities of the human mind, with the exploration of the nature of knowledge as its central task. Contemporary analytical philosophy, originating in the late 19th century and formed in the early 20th century, attempts to discard the effort to understand the essence of cognition and instead studies the expression forms of knowledge—language and logic. The rebellion against traditional metaphysics and the linguistic turn in epistemology constitute the two most important features of contemporary analytical philosophy. These two features are closely linked: analytical philosophers generally believe that traditional metaphysical problems of ontology or value philosophy are meaningless. Metaphysical propositions are merely word games and are unrelated to facts; they cannot provide us with any knowledge about facts. Thus, another question arises: What kind of propositions are meaningful statements? What is meaningful discourse? As a result, the exploration of analytical philosophy on the issue of knowledge becomes an exploration of the relationship between propositions or the relationship between proposition systems. A series of "false" "essential" problems about the relationship between the knowing subject and the known object in traditional epistemology have completely disappeared in contemporary analytical philosophy. In a certain sense, analytical philosophy can be seen as a continuation of epistemology. It clarifies or replaces traditional epistemological problems from the perspective of linguistic logic. All analytical philosophers emphasize the study of language and logic, exploring various conditions and methods that ensure effective communication through language. Whether the effort to formalize and logicize everyday language (Frege, Russell, Carnap, etc.) or the detailed analysis of the use of everyday language (Moore, later Wittgenstein, the ordinary language school), all serve the purpose of using the tool of knowledge expression—language more effectively. Therefore, we can almost call analytical philosophy "language philosophy." It is precisely because of the vigorous development of contemporary analytical philosophy that humans have the opportunity to reflect thoroughly and meticulously on the tool on which our thinking depends—language. The issue of language is not the entirety of philosophy, nor is it the entirety of thinking, but at least it is the starting point for philosophy or thinking. Austin, one of the representatives of the Oxford ordinary language school, once said that we cannot use a tool without first understanding its usage and function. Contemporary analytical philosophy can include the logical analysis ideas of Frege, Moore, Russell, early Wittgenstein, logical positivism (including Schlick, Carnap, Reichenbach, Ayer, etc.), the ordinary language analysis school (including the ideas of later Wittgenstein and Weston, Austin, Ryle, etc.), and the recent developments in language philosophy (including Quine, Strawson, Davies, etc.). The immediate philosophical precursor of analytical philosophy is Frege, who was the first to dedicate himself to the construction of logical language and believed that this was the only legitimate task of philosophy. Moore, Russell, and Wittgenstein are considered the founders of analytical philosophy. Russell's article "On Denotation," published in 1905, is considered the formal marker of the formation of analytical philosophy. This article for the first time relativelyly stated the basic views of analytical philosophy, such as the application of logical analysis, the critique of everyday language, and the theory of definite descriptions, etc. The subsequent logical positivism and ordinary language school respectively explored philosophical problems, knowledge problems, and language problems from the perspectives of the logicalization, empiricization, and ordinary language analysis of language. Although the spirit and methods of the two schools differ, they are consistent in their rebellion against metaphysics and their focus on language issues. The later development of analytical philosophy, especially the development of the ordinary language school, made analytical philosophy fragmented and trivial, to the point where people could no longer distinguish whether it was linguistics or philosophy. Due to the excessive focus on linguistic phenomena, especially on fragmented linguistic phenomena, analytical philosophy somewhat resembles "the philosophy of dissolving philosophy." However, in the recent great analytical philosopher Quine, we can see a good tendency to integrate the study of language issues, cognitive issues, and philosophical issues. All of this profoundly reminds us: philosophical research should fully focus on language but should not stop at language.