Philosophy is not for Wisdom
来源:COLLECTIONS OF TAIJIEVOLUTIONISM | 作者:YONG DUAN | 发布时间: 2021-11-04 | 4516 次浏览 | 分享到:

What is philosophy and why is philosophy useful? Many collage admission advertisements of philosophy depart- ments say that the purpose of learning philosophy is to increase wisdom. In fact, the wisdom growth is not the main role of philosophy. To grow wisdom, it may be more effective to look at some brain teasers.

First of all, philosophy is a theory, and the role of theory is to help people to understand the world. Theory is abstract and imaginary. We must be both pragmatical and stand aloof from life. If you work everyday without thinking, then the work may be unefficient, or even worse. Second, philosophy is the most abstract theory with the least content and the greatest extent. The objective world is full of wonders and changes. If the extension of the theory is small, then we have to deal with various changes and we need a lot of theories. People's ability to read, understand, and remember is limited, and it is impossible to accept too many theories. If the extension of the theory is large, we will be able to cope with shifting events by sticking to a fundamental principle. Philosophy can explain the world's existence and laws in the most concise language, allowing people to see deeper and broader. Philosophy can unite conflicting claims to avoid being at loose ends. It is tolerable to have contradictions on minor matters, but big problems are big ones. This draw forth the other roles of philosophy: to provide rational beliefs, to solve the most important issues, to provide the most fundamental value standards, the ultimate standards of truth, and the overall world outlook, and to provide the basis for science so that science can be justified.

Because philosophy is the most extensive, philosophers must take into account all situations, many of which are uncommon. Ordinary people only care about common or current problems, so philosophers often care about problems that are different from ordinary people. What they say is always unreasonable. Philosophers seem to be strange and useless people.

Many philosophical questions have not yet found an accurate answer, but we cannot say that philosophical questions are questions that can never be answered. There are many questions that have no answers, such as ancient mysteries, theological issues, UFO issues, and many other mysterious phenomena, but these are not philosophical issues. On the contrary, philosophical issues can have answers. For example, the standard of truth, with the development of philosophy of science and technology, has gradually formed a lot of consensus.

There will be mistakes in theories, people will be led astray, and even disasters, but we cannot completely abandon theories and we cannot give up the efforts to improve theory. The unity of believe and doubt, and the unity of pragmatism and ideal is a scientific attitude toward theory.

When we encounter pains and difficulties in life, we need help from science, but scientists have found that they must resort to philosophy. Otherwise, scientific theories cannot be justified. The important conclusion in science is called the theorem, but how do you prove various conclusions and theorems? Many of the theorems seem to be clearly correct, but they are later overturned. For example, how many parallel lines can be made through a point outside a straight line. There is only one in Euclidean geometry, and there are countless lines in non-Euclidean geometry. Originally, everyone thought that the material is immortal, and later found that positive and negative particles can disappear together; we used to believe that particles are real, and later Quantum mechanics says that the appearance of particles is a probability. Then will all theories be overturned in the future? Are there any unchanging truths? In the end, what is truth and how to prove the truth? Scientists must ask philosophers for advice about these questions.

What kind of theory can provide people with faith? All philosophical theories and religious theories can provide people with beliefs, but if a theory is not thorough, it cannot be justified by itself, being self-contradictory, then others can use your spears to attack your shield, and this theory is difficult to be accepted. The reason why contemporary people lost their faith is because all existing philosophical and religious theories cannot be justified. There are two types of beliefs: rational beliefs and irrational beliefs. All kinds of religions are irrational beliefs, rational beliefs are also called secular beliefs, and the beliefs of most political parties are rational beliefs. Every party's belief are different, and many individuals also have their own unique beliefs. However, most of these beliefs are unsystematic, disorganized, superficial, and self-contradictory. Therefore, their ability to guide practice is poor and there are not many believers. Marxism and democracy are the two most influential secular beliefs in the world. Political belief and philosophical belief are the core content of beliefs. Political belief must also be based on philosophy. Political theory cannot be justified without philosophy.

The Renaissance campaign defeated religion by science. Science destroyed all the theoretical foundations of religion, but then science experienced crises repeatedly. Philosophy is part of science and provides the basis for science. Religion can still have many believers because philosophy cannot justify itself. Good philosophical theory must be able to justify itself and eliminate all kinds of logical contradictions. Such philosophy can provide people with a firm belief.

Ancient Chinese and Western philosophy contained a lot of wisdom, but today it looks very rough. After the Renaissance, modern western philosophy developed rapidly and gradually formed a system. Marxism is also part of western modern philosophy. However, all of these philoso- phical theories have many fatal flaws. There are many basic problems that cannot be resolved for a long time. Marxism is criticized a lot, and contemporary western philosophy is hardly better. Contemporary European philosophy and American philosophy is more littery than flourishing. There is no truly complete theory, and only the post- modernism is left. Postmodernism does not have a clear system, destroys much, and has less construction. Although there are also many academic achievements, it is very different from the results of modern philosophy, and a far cry from the development of post-modern science. Levinas and Derrida announced that philosophy is dead.

Of course, philosophy will not die, but philosophers have not found a way out. Most Western contemporary philosophers are keen to study the philosophy of language and the philosophy of logic, and at the same time intentionally or unintentionally avoid the basic problems of philosophy. As a result, Westerners' belief can only rely on religion. Philosophy has thus far failed to replace religion's place in people's hearts. The Renaissance campaign has overthrown religions. Nietzsche had long declared: God is dead, but today's philosophers let religion come back. This is entirely incompetence of philosophy and a retrogression of rationalism. There is nothing lack in our time, but we need thinkers. Martin Wolf, who was listed as the 37th thinker in 2010 by the U.S. Foreign Policy magazine, said,“The intellectuals listed in 2010 are much inferior than the similar lists that may be listed in the 19th century.

With the rapid development of modern science and technology and productivity, if a person who lived in 100 years ago evaluates the world today, he would think that it was a paradise. The computers that used to occupy several rooms in the past are inferior to current mobile phones. At the same time, in some ideas, modern society is very primitive. For example, we all do not know what life is, we cannot determine why we are alive, whether the universe is evolving or is it degenerating? Is the world material or conscious? Is the social morality standard selfish or selfless? This requires us to make more efforts for the development of philosophy. The development of society needs a philosophy with breaking through to occur.