6. Epistemology

The epistemological part of the book "Taiji Evolutionism" studies the problems such as epistemological methods and truth standards in detail. Put forward a set of truth criteria. It includes practical standard, predictability standard, logic unity standard, stability standard and simplicity standard.

Western philosophers have been trying to find an objective basis for knowledge, but have failed in the end. No knowledge is absolutely objective, but all kinds of knowledge have different values, and we should choose the most valuable knowledge as the truth. Therefore, the most fundamental standard of truth is not objective, but useful, which is called the practical standard.

The greatest value of truth is to help us foresee the future. We have to make decisions every day, for example, who you decide to marry, how you invest, how you fight and so on. Before making a decision, the first thing is to predict, for example, how much I can earn from this investment, how much I can earn from that investment, whether I will live happily married to this person, these are predictions. Truth can help us to make correct predictions, wrong understanding will bring wrong predictions. So the truth is useful.

The practical standard is the most fundamental standard, and other standards are substitute standards. Because whether my prediction is right, it may take me a long time to know, so what do I do now if I have to decide at once? Only some alternative criteria can be used, mainly the criterion of logical unity and the criterion of simplicity.

The ultimate criterion of truth is usefulness, but what exactly the word "useful" means? It is not an epistemological question, but an ethical one. Useful is valuable. Useful is good. The question of values is the core of ethics, and this part of ethics is called meta-ethics.

Epistemology is the basis of ontology, while meta-ethics is the basis of epistemology, and the history view of generalized evolution is the basis of meta-ethics. Ancient Greek philosophers were keen on studying ontology, but since Descartes, the focus of philosophical research has shifted from ontology to epistemology. Then the epistemological research finally found that the core problem is the ethical problem. So Confucius' theory is also philosophy. Hegel said that Confucius did not understand philosophy, in fact, Hegel did not understand philosophy.