Enter the Realm of Clarity: A New Direction in Philosophy

Author: Zhang Shiyi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-04-01
Features: The humanism of Western modern philosophy is not satisfied with traditional philosophy's ascent from the sensory to the understood, with the "eternally present" abstract identity or essence concept as the root of things in the "presence metaphysics." Instead, it demands a return to the concrete and ever-changing real world, thereby turning toward the philosophical view that the present and the absent, yet equally individual, combine into an endless whole. The highest task of philosophy is no longer simply achieving the same universality but rather reaching the interconnectedness and fusion of various different things in the world. The way philosophy admires for grasping things is no longer mere thought but imagination. This turn of philosophy has had a significant impact on historical views, artistic views, and many other aspects. For example, in the artistic view, the theory of imitation turns to the theory of revelation and concealment; in the historical view, the focus shifts from restoring the original state of history to the theory of the fusion of ancient and modern. And so on. In short, it expands the realm of imagination, transcends the present, transcends the self, in a word, transcends the boundaries and limitations of everything present, and looks to the unmanifested to reveal an infinitely vast world. This is the direction that the new philosophy guides us toward. Based on this turn, this book changes the traditional Western academic framework, which primarily discusses categories such as thought, subject and object, essence and phenomenon, sensory knowledge and rational knowledge, the individual and the universal, and the concrete and the abstract. Instead, it combines with ancient Chinese philosophy, formulating and emphasizing the discussion of philosophical categories such as presence and absence, revelation and concealment, similarity and interconnectedness, ancient and modern, thought and imagination, speech and silence, center and periphery. The new philosophical direction is primarily the spiritual space that communicates through imagination. In the end, the author uses poetic language to conclude that life's homeland is the ultimate goal of the entire book.